


A Place Called Home

by luvtheheaven



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 03:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1413256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvtheheaven/pseuds/luvtheheaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Jess came back to Stars Hollow at the beginning of season 5, to find Rory and Luke both out of town and only Lorelai around to help him with a problem he's trying to solve back in New York? Pro-Literati & Java Junkie. All Lorelai/Jess stuff is definitely platonic, don't worry. Includes Lorelai, Jess, Rory, Luke, and every possible relationship among them, since I truly love all of these dynamics. </p><p>(Rape/Non-con is not shown explicitly, so I decided not to apply that warning, but being a survivor is part of the backstory of the original female character you'll meet in chapter 6. Her past traumatic experiences becomes a major plot point in the later chapters, but I don't think it will necessarily be triggering. It is handled as a serious issue in the fic and so far the rapist doesn't even appear, no flashbacks, nothing like that. However, please read with caution if you worry that this stuff might be upsetting for you.)</p><p>(Also - I'm guessing this fic will be about 15 chapters total by the time I finish it, but at the moment this is still only a rough estimate, and that number might change.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jess on the Doorstep

**Author's Note:**

> Iscah_McKrae over on fanfiction.net is a really great writer for Jess-related (and all Gilmore Girls-related) things, so make sure you check out her fics on that site. She also was my beta reader for all of these chapters so far and will continue to be beta-ing this fic for me. ;) So I just want to give her a HUGE shout-out and thank you! ;)

Jess asked Rory to come away with him to New York. He didn't want to stay in a fake city like New Haven or worse, Stars Hollow. He didn't belong anywhere in Connecticut and whenever he was there he felt like everyone around, strangers and acquaintances alike, knew it. But Rory yelled "No!" at him. No she _really_ didn't want to be with him. Her cold response was like a bucket of ice water being thrown on him, and he felt shocked to his core. He stood there frozen for a moment, then left. He had already said goodbye to his mother and Luke and left both of them his new cell phone number... and now that he'd taken his shot with Rory and she'd turned him down, he was done. He was heartbroken, but she _clearly_ wanted nothing to do with him, so their story had to end there. He didn't plan to return to New England anytime in the near future. He didn't plan to see Rory ever again if he could avoid it.

He drove back to New York feeling relatively numb. He was good at avoiding actually feeling any painful emotions, and right now he knew that if he didn't put in the effort he'd be crying pathetically. He had felt a hint of the pain that had threatened to overwhelm him, and blocked it out before letting it get the best of him. Instead, he focused on fiction instead of real life on his silent drive home. His car radio was completely broken, and had been ever since he first purchased the car. It _was_ quite junky and old. Usually while driving, he'd be able to focus on a recent piece of literature he'd been reading; he could remember the details, thinking up new commentary – mainly negative criticisms when he was in a bad mood. However on this particular drive, he was thinking of a fictional story that he himself was writing. He wasn't sure what motivated him to start writing- although a part of him that hated to admit it was sure Rory had something to do with it. He'd started writing on his long bus ride back to New York from California, after he'd run out of books to read. He'd managed to complete two chapters, but it'd been months since he had considered continuing this story – he hadn't actually touched pen to paper since he told Rory he loved her. But right now, it was the only thing he could focus on. So he thought about his characters and plot and planned out his entire third chapter on his drive home. Although honestly, it didn't feel like "home" to Jess.

"Home is where the heart is," or so the expression goes. Home is where you feel safe, comfortable, or perhaps loved. Approaching a crappy apartment and roommates whose names he couldn't quite remember... he wasn't returning home. He didn't have a home.

* * *

A week or so later, Rory slept with Dean. Lorelai came home, yelling out some story about Kirk as Rory scrambled to get her dress back on as quickly as possible. She threw Dean's shirt to him as she heard her mother approaching the room. She glanced at the bed and at her hair in the mirror. It was too obvious what they'd just done. There was no hiding it.

Everything Lorelai said was right and Rory knew it. She was in denial, or at least trying to be, but she wouldn't have yelled back _so_ defensively at Lorelai if she didn't realize, on _some_ level, that Lorelai really did have a point.

Rory called Dean's cell; she needed to apologize to him for her mother, and more importantly she desperately needed confirmation that he was really leaving Lindsay - that she wasn't _really_ the other woman... despite the part of her who knew that she was. But Lindsay's sweet voice broke through Rory's self-protective wall of denial. She was _so_ obviously the other woman, and poor Lindsay was oblivious. Lindsay didn't deserve to be cheated on. Rory felt so insanely guilty. She started to cry, hating herself for potentially ruining a marriage. She tried to convince herself it was Dean's fault. She also, much more selfishly, hated herself for losing her virginity in such a way. She'd always, for the rest of her life, remember this night as tear-filled; as a colossally stupid mistake. For once she did _not_ want her mother to comfort her.

* * *

Luke hung up the phone, pleased that Lorelai apparently enjoyed their kiss as much as he did. He returned to work with a huge grin on his face. But then, a couple of hours later, he got another phone call. This one was not nearly as pleasant. Liz, currently in Maine, informed him that she and her new husband were injured in a car accident. He hated hearing that his little sister was hurt. She assured him it was just her arm and leg, and insisted she was fine. (It still sounded pretty bad to him.) However because TJ broke two of his limbs as well, neither one of them would be able to sell Liz's jewelry at the Renaissance fair for their first few weeks of recovery, and they needed some help. She begged Luke to come and he never could refuse when his sister asked him for something. So he called Caesar out of the kitchen and explained the situation, then packed his bag. He didn't remember that he and Lorelai had planned to meet that night until he was already on the road, and he couldn't call her from his car without a cell phone. So he stopped on his way through Hartford to buy one. After listening to about an hour of complicated advice about phone choices, he finally had something to call Lorelai with.

* * *

Rory left to go to Europe with her grandmother, and Lorelai missed her already. She wished her daughter had said goodbye to her on better terms. Walking back into her house, Lorelai noticed some new messages on her answering machine and hit "play." She'd temporarily forgotten about her new budding romance with Luke, and his voice reminded her and made her smile. She hated that he was gone now too, though. She couldn't tell anyone that Rory slept with Dean, and she knew that included Luke. Still, she wished he was around as a pleasant distraction from all the drama she had to deal with in her daughter's life. She wanted something to keep her from dwelling on how much she'd obviously failed as a parent. Lorelai was about to call Luke on his new cell phone when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. She was quite surprised to open it and discover Jess.

"Oh! Hi, Jess," she floundered, waiting for him to explain why he was on her front porch. His face showed no hint of his intentions.

"Can I please speak to Rory?" he asked determinedly. Lorelai tried to guess why he was there in front of her, wanting to see Rory. The last she knew of Jess and Rory's interaction was him saying he loved her and then immediately driving away.

"I'm sorry," Lorelai answered. "She just left for Europe with my mother. She won't be back for a couple of weeks." She stared back at the young man in the leather jacket; she liked the outfit he wore to his mother's wedding better, even if it _had_ looked a bit ridiculous on him considering his usual style.

 _Dammit,_ Jess thought. He was pissed that Rory was truly unreachable, and not only that. She seemed to actually be spiting him. The job he currently had earned him barely enough to afford the gas he'd needed to get back here to Connecticut, and yet _she_ was off doing rich-people things like vacationing to Europe with her grandmother.

"Nevermind then," he told Lorelai, turning around. He started walking back towards his car.

"Wait," Lorelai said. "Why did you want to talk to her?"

Jess hesitated and turned around. He didn't want to answer her. This was a private matter between him and Rory. Why couldn't Lorelai see that?

"I just want to talk to her," he said simply, refusing to answer, but doing so in the most polite way he could muster.

"Okay," Lorelai replied. He turned back towards his car. "Wait!" Lorelai called after him again. He paused but didn't turn back around this time. She continued, "Luke's not home."

Jess, still facing away from her, rolled his eyes. He was half annoyed and half impressed that she knew where he was next heading. "How do you know?" he asked, turning back to face Lorelai once again. He was somewhat surprised to see her blush and smile a bit. _Were they dating now or something?_ Jess thought. _They did go to the wedding together..._

"He just got a cell phone and called me," she said. "Come inside and I can copy down the number for you."

Wordlessly he followed her inside. She found the piece of paper with Luke's number on it and copied it onto another. She handed the new copy to him. "Feel free to call him now if you want. I'll..." she hesitated, looking over at the boy. She had the strong feeling that he needed to talk to someone. She hoped he would really talk to Luke. "I was just about it go return a casserole dish to Sookie anyway," she fibbed. "So I'll leave you alone," she said, heading into the kitchen to find Sookie's glass dish. Lorelai was pretty sure she'd been holding onto the dish for over a year; she never could remember to return it.

After Lorelai grabbed her keys and was out the door, Jess took Lorelai's phone out of its base. He didn't want to waste his limited cell phone minutes if he didn't have to.

Luke fumbled quickly for his phone as soon as he heard the first ring, and answered it quickly after the second without even glancing at the caller ID.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Luke," Jess said in his signature monotone, which didn't reveal any emotion.

"Jess?" Luke was really surprised.

"Yeah."

"How did you get my number?"


	2. Jess Alone in the Gilmore House

"Jess?" Luke was really surprised.

"Yeah."

"How did you get my number?"

"Lorelai," Jess simply replied. Luke shook his head. Jess never was one to elaborate, was he?

"Well," Luke pressed on, "why were you talking to Lorelai?" It'd been a while since Luke was this confused. What in the world was Jess doing? "Are you in Stars Hollow or something? Is this about Rory?"

"Um yeah, kinda," Jess admitted. "I just wanted to talk to her about something but she's not around. Lorelai told me you're not around either. Where are you?"

"Um... your mom got in a pretty bad car crash," Luke said somberly. Jess tensed up a bit, waiting for his uncle to finish the story. "She's gonna be fine, but she broke an arm and a leg. TJ did too; they have matching injuries apparently." Jess breathed a very small sigh of relief. He might still resent his mother more than she'd ever know, but of course he still cared if she lived or died. In fact, he felt a little hurt that no one had thought to contact him about his mother.

"Good," he said in response. "So... where exactly are you?"

"Oh sorry, I'm on my way to Maine." Jess didn't reply. "I'll be here for about a week, helping them with their Renaissance fair stuff." That made Jess smile.

"You know, Luke," he said, "I don't think I can picture you in one of those costumes." Luke's eyes went wide.

"I _never_ agreed to dressing up!" he explained vehemently. He wanted to change the subject. "So... Rory's not around? I thought she was home for the summer."

"Oh. Well, apparently, she just left to go to Europe with Lorelai's mother," Jess said.

"Oh," Luke replied, surprised. "Well, I guess that was a last-minute plan."

"Yeah, I guess so." Jess hesitated for a moment. "So... would you mind if I stayed at your place while you're gone?" Jess got the question over with quickly. He hated having to ask. "I swear you won't even know I was there."

"Yeah, of course," Luke replied. "You know you're always welcome there. The spare key's still in the same place above the door. Feel free to eat whatever I left in the fridge."

"Thanks," Jess said, feeling much more grateful than he was willing to let show in his tone.

"So Jess, if you don't mind my asking..."

"You want to know why I needed to talk to Rory?"

"Well, yeah." Luke didn't want to press him too hard and scare him away.

"Well, it's a long story," Jess started, already dreading the number of words that would have to come out of his mouth in order to convey everything, "but you know how I've got this job working as a messenger in the city?"

"Yeah; you're a courier or something?"

"Uh huh," Jess confirmed. "So... most messages can be emailed or faxed nowadays, so the only things I usually do are more like errands for the rich businessmen who hire the courier company."

"Yeah," Luke replied, still following.

"And so I'm used to doing things like picking up dry cleaning or even being given keys to people's homes and asked to find their passports they left in a drawer somewhere and deliver it or something."

"Okay..." Luke was wondering where this was leading.

"But a few days ago I was actually asked to deliver an envelope to someone in an apartment, and it was sealed, so of course I didn't know what was inside. But I was asked to make sure not only that the person got it, but my task was also to actually witness with my eyes that the receiver opened it and read the note inside."

"And...?"

"And when I got to the apartment and knocked, the woman inside yelled through the door that she wasn't going to open the door. I explained why I was there, and she insisted that she just wanted me to slide it under the door. I refused, trying to do my job. I didn't want to get fired." Luke wondered how many jobs Jess had been fired from in his short life. "Eventually she opened the door and let me in. She wasn't really a woman, she couldn't be older than fifteen or sixteen, and she was very pregnant. She read the note and took out a large sum of money from the envelope and my job had been completed. But then she burst into tears and I... I didn't know what to do, Luke!"

"What _did_ you do?"

"I asked her if she was okay, and she ended up telling me a lot of things... and basically she really needs someone to tell her that being pregnant and having a baby at that age is not necessarily the end of the world nor of her life!" Jess clearly sounded very concerned. "She was so scared and upset, Luke, and she never leaves the apartment. I am worried that if she goes into labor, she'll kill herself and her baby because she's... too _embarrassed_ or something insane!"

"Oh gosh," Luke replied, unsure of what to say. "So you... you thought maybe Rory..."

"...could talk some sense into her? Yeah, I did!"

"Wow. Um. Well. You're probably right," Luke said. "But um... since Rory's not around, maybe Lorelai could help you?" he suggested.

"Oh," Jess replied, taken aback.

"Yeah, I mean Lorelai actually did get pregnant at sixteen and all that... she might be even more helpful than Rory, you know?" Luke considered once again how much Lorelai had overcome in her life. He was so impressed by her and was pretty sure he was in love with her.

"Yeah... you're probably right," Jess said. He hated the idea of having to ask Lorelai for this favor... to come all the way to New York with him. Lorelai had always hated his guts, and what if she wanted to bring up the subject of Rory?

He had thought Rory would be the perfect person to help because she was the daughter of Lorelai, and because he knew Lorelai's story would be inspiring and help this poor girl. But not once had actually asking Lorelai herself ever cross his mind.

"So, you'll ask Lorelai?" Luke really hoped he would.

"Um... yeah. I guess," Jess reluctantly agreed.

"Okay, great!" Luke smiled and nodded to himself. "So, um... I'm driving, I probably should concentrate on the road."

"Yeah, sure," Jess replied. "I'll let you go. Talk to you soon," he said. Jess hung up Lorelai's phone and walked back over to the base. He gently placed it down in its cradle. He was alone in the house, and he felt weird about it. He hadn't been alone in this house since he'd returned the bracelet that Dean had made Rory, and Lorelai had come home right then and caught him in the act. That was almost three years ago now, though. So much had happened since then.

Jess carefully made his way over to Rory's bedroom. It was almost like it was calling him there and he just couldn't resist the temptation. He justified what he was doing as trying to find a clock, so that he could know what time it was. In reality, though, he was just curious to see her room in general. He walked in and immediately saw the time on Rory's alarm clock – it was already 7:00 PM. But he remained in the room, glancing around. Her bed with the pink flowered comforter on it had been made neatly, and he considered for a moment how he'd never once in his life bothered to make his bed. In so many ways, Rory would always be the complete opposite of him. He saw some new books on her bookshelf, including a few books that she'd probably had to purchase for college classes. Overall, however, her room looked exactly the same as it had before they'd ever started dating, that time when he slipped the bracelet under her bed. It was almost eerie to him to think of how much had changed in his life since then, but how little had changed in hers. Her bulletin board had some Yale stuff on it now, sure, but somehow it all looked the same to him.

Then something in the little trashcan next to her bed caught his eye. It was a condom wrapper! Jess couldn't believe his eyes, but there it was. Had Rory really been having sex with someone? Was she dating someone new? He suddenly wished he'd never entered the bedroom. He was invading her privacy; that condom wrapper was not meant to be seen by him, and he felt like he had betrayed her by noticing it. He quickly left the room and sat back down on the couch in the living room. He would wait for Lorelai to return from Sookie's. He would ask Lorelai to come with him to New York and help this poor girl. He would pretend that he never saw that condom wrapper.


	3. Lorelai Agrees to Go with Jess

Lorelai came home eventually, after giving Jess what she _thought_ was enough time for him to definitely be finished his conversation with Luke. A couple of hours had passed and the sun had gone down. However, she saw Jess's car still in her driveway when she pulled up. Clearly, for some reason, he was still inside. She walked up the porch and saw a lamp on in her living room. She considered knocking on the door, even though it was her own house. She decided to just slowly walk in. She saw Jess sitting on the couch, reading. He heard her enter and closed the book, then abruptly stood up and turned to face her, clearly with a sense of purpose.

"Hi," she said hesitantly. It was clear in her voice that she expected him to be gone by now.

"Hi," he replied. "I... need to ask for a favor." He felt very nervous but it didn't really show.

"A favor?" Lorelai was surprised. "What _kind_ of a favor?" she asked skeptically. She hoped she didn't sound too rude. Jess motioned for her to sit down on the other end of the couch. They both sat.

"So um... Luke told me I should ask you... and um..." he seemed to be struggling to find the right words, despite the fact that he'd had quite a long time to prepare what he'd say to Lorelai. Jess didn't seem to want to look her in the eye, and he glanced down nervously. She waited patiently for him to get the right words out. "Would you please come to New York with me?" Lorelai blinked, confused, but she didn't need to ask Jess to explain- he was already doing that. "You see there's this pregnant girl who is young, probably the age you were when you were pregnant." Lorelai tensed up, not sure she liked where this was heading. "And she's really scared and stuff... and I think it'd be really good if she talked to someone." Jess looked into Lorelai's eyes. Lorelai realized this kid was sincere and really trying to help some poor girl in need. She wondered how he knew the girl... maybe he was the father? She considered him for a moment; he wasn't acting like he was the father. She didn't have too much time to think about it, though. Jess was still talking. "And... well... I don't know who else to ask," he finished, mumbling that last part and darting his eyes away, kind of nervously.

"Um... okay, sure," Lorelai agreed, smiling. Jess was shocked that convincing her to come on a road trip with him had been that easy.

"Really? Oh. Okay, great," Jess replied. "Thank you. Um..." he looked around the room a bit, as if he was checking to see if he'd left anything behind despite not having brought anything into the house. "I was thinking I'd go to Luke's and get some sleep and then we could leave first thing in the morning?" Lorelai was a little surprised that they were leaving so soon, but she had already agreed to go with him, so she didn't protest.

"Sounds great to me," she replied. _This was going to be really... interesting,_ Lorelai thought. She was strangely excited by the prospect of a road trip to New York City with Jess. "Do you mind if I drive?" she asked him, considering the car that looked like it would crumble apart while they were still in it on the highway. "I mean, if we take my Jeep?" Jess shrugged.

"No, I don't mind. That sounds fine to me," he replied. At least this way he saved some gas money. Also, this way there was almost no chance of him being blamed if they got into a car crash, unlike last time he drove with a Gilmore in the car.

Jess left the house, and before he'd even gotten to his car, Lorelai was already rushing to the phone to call Luke. She asked for more details but, to her frustration, found that Luke didn't have much more to tell her.

"Fine," Lorelai said, "but you better have loads of details about the Renaissance Fair once you start working there." He laughed.

"Sure," he agreed. "I'll call you after the first day and tell you everything."

"Good," she said, smiling. "I might be in New York, so call my cell," she requested.

"Sure," he agreed. He knew her cell phone number by heart too, despite having never called it before. She'd given it to him in case of emergency years ago, and he'd never had to use it. But he knew it. Lorelai realized that Luke must have memorized her number because he wasn't asking her for it. The thought made her grin even more. She really was excited to be starting this dating thing with Luke. It was making her heart flutter, and she felt like she was blushing right then. She'd never really felt this way before. Not even with Max... not even with Chris. With both of those men she'd felt something similar, but it was weaker, dimmer, and more in the background of her heart and mind. The guy in her life being _Luke_ was causing these thoughts and feelings to overwhelm her whole self. It was kind of scaring her a bit.

"I'll talk to you then, then?" she asked, feeling stupid for repeating the word.

"Yeah," Luke replied, also smiling in a way that was conveyed in his tone of voice. "So... I guess... bye?"

"Bye," she said, and they both hung up. Lorelai stared out the window at where Jess's car had been. A part of her wished she could call her daughter and tell Rory what was going on, but another part of her was kind of glad that she had an excuse to not tell her right away. She wasn't sure what Rory's feelings about Jess were, but Lorelai knew that Rory had just slept with Dean, and had called Dean "my guy"- maybe she really had regretted choosing Jess over Dean in the first place; after all, two years ago when she'd found out that Rory had kissed Jess, Lorelai had told Rory she had to choose. And Rory had chosen Dean then.

Lorelai couldn't think about her daughter's complicated love life right now. She was exhausted and had a road trip to get ready for. She called the inn and informed Michel that she wasn't going to be coming in for a few days. She didn't know how long she'd be gone. Michel grumbled something about how unprofessional she was being, not even giving a full day's notice, but she ignored him. Then she tried her best to pack lightly, but still somehow ended up with a huge suitcase to bring with her. The sound of the zipper as she closed the suitcase was poignantly loud. She felt so lonely in the quiet house- more lonely than she usually did when Rory was away at college. Lorelai considered how a strange part of her even missed Jason a bit, because when she was with him at his place, sleeping over, she hadn't felt lonely at all. Yet, at the same time, she didn't really miss him. She didn't feel heartbroken over Jason the way she had felt over Max and Christopher. She missed Jason a little, but at the same time, she already felt like she'd moved on.


	4. The Departure

Jess entered Luke's empty apartment, dropped his bag on the floor, and realized he was starving; he hadn't eaten since lunch. He flicked on a light, then looked in the fridge. He saw materials for hamburgers and figured since the meat would probably go bad before Luke returned anyway, he might as well use it. He found the frying pan in the cabinet and proceeded to make himself a fairly nice meal. He had never cooked in this apartment before; Luke had always done that for him, but he knew where everything was and had learned how to make burgers back when he was only eleven or twelve.

When he finished, he carefully cleaned up after himself; he threw away all the trash, and washed the frying pan and plate he'd made dirty. He then went over to his bed, which was still just there, seemingly waiting for him, in Luke's apartment. He changed into the shirt and shorts that currently constituted his pajamas, then lay down on the soft bed (which happened to be much more comfortable than the mattress he currently was sleeping on most nights). He was tired enough to just drift off quickly.

Jess woke up, got dressed, and ate a bowl of cereal, just like he had every morning when he'd been living with Luke. He smiled to himself, remembering when Luke had bought him Frosted Flakes and Pop Tarts, unsure of what he'd like to eat for breakfast. Jess ultimately enjoyed the same boring, healthy cereal that Luke did, though. It took him all of three seconds to pack up – he simply had to put his dirty clothes from the previous day back into his bag – and then he was on his way to Lorelai's. He decided to leave his car in front of Luke's and instead walk to Lorelai's house. He carried his bag over his shoulder, steadying it with one hand, and with the other he held his book. He always had enjoyed reading while walking; it was a pleasant way to pass the time it took to get to where he was going.

When he got there, he knocked on the door. A very disheveled Lorelai answered the door; she was still in her bathrobe with a towel on her head and a slipper on only one of her feet. It looked like she had just taken a shower and then ran quickly to answer the door. Jess smirked a bit. He'd never seen Lorelai quite like this before.

"Sorry, I'm not quite ready," she informed him, stating the obvious. "I'll just be a minute!" she yelled as she started to turn away from Jess and run back upstairs to her bedroom. Jess doubted that she'd only be one minute and he stood there in the doorway, wishing she'd explicitly asked him to wait inside. He figured she'd meant to invite him in though, so he carefully went in and closed the door behind him, then shuffled over to the couch. He noticed all the pictures on the mantel were exactly the same as when he'd first entered the house two and a half years ago. Pretty much the whole house was the same. _Except now it's a place where Rory clearly has sex_ _;_ _that's different,_ he couldn't help thinking. He realized he felt a little hurt by the thought of her sleeping with someone. She couldn't have been dating this new person for too long, could she have? Luke hadn't mentioned anything the last few times he'd spoken to him... he continued to think. Lorelai had said back in February that Rory was _over_ him. Perhaps she'd already been dating that new person back then? Could that have been why she didn't react positively when he'd said 'I love you' and then also why she later rejected his "live with me in New York" proposal so forcefully? He wished Lorelai would come back down quickly because he couldn't stop his mind from wandering when he was in this house. It made him think about Rory too much.

After probably fifteen minutes, Lorelai came downstairs, dressed and ready to go, lugging a huge suitcase behind her. It looked like they both were about to topple down the stairs.

"Uh... you want some help with that?" Jess offered, a bit concerned that Lorelai was going to kill herself.

"Oh no, I'm totally fine," Lorelai insisted. "I'm a strong, independent woman who can carry her luggage herself," she said proudly, immediately before losing grip on the suitcase and jumping back to let it fall the rest of the way down the stairs. The sound echoed loudly through the house. "Whoops," she said, giggling. Jess rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long day.

Lorelai ran into the kitchen and grabbed a Pop Tart, then filled up her thermos with coffee before heading out with Jess. He watched her struggle to get the suitcase into the car, and didn't bother to mention to her that she probably wouldn't be needing it at all – he hoped to return back to Stars Hollow by the end of the day.

"Get in the car," Lorelai said to him cheerfully as she started climbing into the driver's side. Jess took his seat beside her. They were ready to depart. As they pulled out of the driveway, Lorelai considered turning on the radio. She decided she should wait at least a few minutes for that though. They had a long drive ahead of them. Maybe they could talk a little first? She was curious to learn more about what Jess had been up to these last few months. She decided to try to be patient and wait for him to speak first though.

She got to the traffic light that was red for no reason and was reminded of her ended engagement to Max. It was early morning then as well, and at the time she and Rory had been driving in silence, just like she and Jess were now. But as she glanced towards the diner, another memory vividly came to mind.

"This is where I told Rory you were gone," she told Jess. He tensed up and Lorelai noticed. She didn't really think before saying what was on her mind, and she realized as soon as she started that she was probably treading into uncomfortable territory. She also realized she had failed at being patient and waiting for him to speak first. _Oh well._ She continued, "I mean, Luke had told me you left and I was going to tell Rory, I was just waiting for the right time, you know? And then Luke was outside sweeping, and we were stopped at this light, and... he ran away..." Lorelai trailed off, knowing she was telling the story poorly. She didn't really want to continue it though. It had been stupid to bring it up in the first place. The light turned green, and she continued driving towards the highway.

"...and?" Jess asked. He actually did want to know what had happened. He didn't really want to encourage Lorelai to talk about any topic concerning Rory, especially not concerning his relationship with her, but... she'd made him curious.

"And..." Lorelai replied, glancing at him briefly, "and so I told her. I explained that you were gone and Luke didn't seem to think you would be coming back." Jess simply nodded in response. "She didn't think you'd be coming back either," Lorelai added quietly.

Jess wondered why Lorelai wasn't acting angry towards him. He would have thought she'd be defending Rory, calling him out on how horrible he was to just abandon her daughter like that. But Lorelai almost seemed to have forgiven him, or at least seemed to understand that he'd feel bad for having hurt her. He was surprised by how kind she was being.

"I'm sorry," he replied. He knew it wasn't really enough to say, and that really he should be saying it to Rory and not her mother. But Lorelai appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. She smiled understandingly and gently nodded, then glanced at him briefly, expecting him to be looking at her. He wasn't though, but rather was staring out his window. They drove for another couple of minutes without either one saying a word.

"So," she said, breaking the silence with a new topic as soon as she had gotten onto the highway. "The grand opening of my inn was a couple of nights ago!"

"Oh really?" Jess replied, trying to act as interested as possible. He was already preferring this type of small talk over their previous short conversation, and he wanted to encourage Lorelai to keep talking about this safe, Rory-free topic.

"Yeah it was a huge success too," she explained, beaming with pride. "I invited everyone in the town to come, and Sookie made the most amazing dishes, and well there was this issue with the doors not quite being ready in time but everything worked out. And um, I don't know if Luke told you, but we kissed!" Jess raised his eyebrows, a bit surprised. She kept talking excitedly. "And then Kirk interrupted us though- he came running down from his room, _butt naked_ , screaming!" Jess couldn't help himself from smiling a bit.


	5. Personal Car Conversations

"And then Kirk interrupted us though- he came running down from his room, _butt naked_ , screaming!" Jess couldn't help himself from smiling a bit. "And then I just ran home to get Band-Aids for Kirk because _of course_ he landed in the rosebushes, and I told Rory about Kirk as I was running around the house. I don't know if she heard me though, because... um... well..." Lorelai was almost slipping up. She quickly caught herself.

Jess could tell something was a little odd about how she didn't finish that sentence, but he didn't say anything.

She continued, "Then I quickly returned to the inn and Luke was still with Kirk, unsure of what to do with the poor guy. Kirk did _not_ want Lulu to see him like this."

"Lulu?" he asked.

"Oh right, you don't know – Kirk has a _girlfriend_ now!"

"Wow," Jess replied. He thought back to the wedding and realized he'd seen Kirk with someone there, but because Jess usually ignored Kirk it hadn't even properly registered in his mind. Jess couldn't help but think about how apparently _everyone_ had gotten in a new relationship since he'd left the town a year earlier – his mother who had just gotten married _again_ , Kirk of all freaks, Luke and Lorelai who were actually an item now, and of course Jess couldn't forget the fact that presumably Rory was now also dating some mysterious new guy.

Lorelai noticed that Jess wasn't one to say much, not even during long silences... and right then he seemed to be reflecting on something thoughtfully. She gave him a moment before getting impatient and deciding to ask him some personal stuff, because she _was_ Lorelai and of course couldn't resist.

"So..." she started, trailing off because she hadn't even _really_ thought of what to ask him yet. Lorelai often did this speaking before thinking thing, didn't she? She finally thought of something though- something she really was interested to find out more about. "When you left, you know, last year... where did you go?" Jess was a little taken aback by the question. He wasn't expecting her to go there.

"Uh... California," he answered. He knew what Lorelai's next question was going to be, but he still waited until she asked it before providing the necessary explanation.

"Why?" she asked, starting to get used to how she would have to gently press him if she ever wanted to get any information out of him.

"I wanted to... meet my father," he admitted quietly. Lorelai tried to keep a straight face and be respectful. She could tell this was very personal territory for him, and she didn't want to make an enemy when she still had to drive next to him for another hour. But she'd had no idea he'd never met his father, and she suddenly found herself thinking about Jess with a whole new perspective.

"Oh," she replied simply. "Did you... um…. What was that like?" she asked tentatively. Jess thought about his answer for a moment before replying.

"It was surprisingly satisfying," he admitted. "I stayed with him for about a month," he added, which surprised Lorelai. She hadn't been expecting him to elaborate. "I'm not sure if I'll ever see him again... but... I must say I'm glad to have had the chance to meet him, you know?" It was a rhetorical question, for Jess knew quite well that Lorelai didn't really "know".

Lorelai kept staring ahead at the road but nodded, clearly showing that she was listening. She hoped Jess would take that as a sign of respect and appreciation for him sharing that with her. They drove for the following fifteen minutes in silence. It took all of Lorelai's willpower to stay that quiet for so long, and she spent the time making lists of things she needed to do for the inn, and then thinking about the lyrics of a song that had been stuck in her head, and then trying to telepathically figure out what Jess was thinking... but after a full fifteen minutes she couldn't be quiet _any_ longer and so she chimed up again.

"So... do you know what this girl's name is? The girl we're traveling to talk to?"

"Um... no, sorry," Jess said.

"Well can you give me _any_ details to work with, please?" Lorelai was desperate to paint a picture in her mind of what to expect.

"She looked pretty far along to me, but I'm not sure if I'm the best judge. Only about five feet tall and you could tell she was skinny before the pregnancy." He paused, thinking. "Her apartment was a bit of a mess, but it's in a very nice building, you could tell whoever's paying for it has plenty of cash." He looked at Lorelai, hoping that was enough information to please her.

"Thanks," she replied. "Now I can sort of imagine her... and the place."

They continued driving, and finally Jess decided to pose a question. He knew Lorelai had been struggling to keep conversation going and she clearly wasn't comfortable with the silences, so he decided to ask her something he'd wondered about.

"What was growing up like for you?" he asked, genuinely curious to hear her perspective. Sure, he'd met Emily Gilmore and had been in what had been Lorelai's childhood home. He'd also read countless books about the lives of the wealthy and privileged and heard tidbits of what Rory told him secondhand about Lorelai's experiences and thoughts. But Jess wanted to hear something straight from Lorelai and potentially learn something new about her. He had grown up in such a completely opposite setting as Lorelai and in some ways yearned to understand what her childhood might have been like.

Lorelai was surprised by the question and was unsure of what he was looking for in her response. She hesitated for a moment and continued driving, thinking for a moment. She glanced over at Jess and tried to read his facial expression, but Jess was a complete mystery to Lorelai at this moment. In fact, she was starting to realize that Jess _in general_ was a mystery to her.

"It was stuffy and often surreal," Lorelai answered, trying to figure out how best to explain it to Jess. "Fancy meals served on nice dishes were magically made at the same hour at the same time every day, and every piece of upholstery or curtain or knickknack around a room had to match, and your bed was always made for you during the day. You got sent to private school by default and some expensive camp every summer." Lorelai didn't seem to be getting to what Jess was looking for, so she tried to expand on it. "It was easy in some ways, but I just always felt so trapped. You were stuck in this rigid schedule and set of rules for how to be polite. Your life was planned out before you were born and even unexpected pregnancies were unheard of," she said, rolling her eyes a bit, saying the last part more to herself than to anyone else. "I was kinda lonely most of the time," she mentioned softly. "You know, I didn't have any siblings or aunts or uncles or cousins. My dad was always on business trips, and my mom would usually just set up play dates with the children of her friends without any regard for who _I_ might have wanted to play with. When I got a bit older, no one really _got_ me except for Chris." Lorelai didn't realize that Jess was watching her very intently as she reminisced and brought up Rory's father.

"And then I guess... you got pregnant," Jess commented. Lorelai nodded.

"I did." She just stared ahead at the road, lost in thought, for a few more minutes. But then she reached the exit on I-95 that she had been waiting for. "Jess, can you please-?"

"Tell you where to go?" he offered.

"Yeah, that'd be awesome," she replied appreciatively.

"Sure." Jess then proceeded to tell her where to turn and how to get to the girl's apartment by car. He'd never been in a car in New York before, but he was able to figure out pretty easily how to give the driving directions. As Lorelai listened and tried to follow his words, she realized that this car ride had been surprisingly pleasant; they were almost at their destination and were still on good terms. In fact, she noted mentally as they pulled into a surprisingly cheap parking garage a few blocks away from where they were headed, she and Jess were probably on _better_ terms now than ever.


	6. Clara

"This is it," Jess told Lorelai, gesturing toward the apartment of the girl he'd met. They were on the seventh floor of the building and now one of them just had to knock.

"Shall I?" Lorelai asked, raising her eyebrows and gesturing toward the door. Jess shrugged while nodding, so Lorelai hit the door with her fist a few times.

"Who is it?" a voice from inside asked, and Lorelai made eye contact with Jess.

"That's her," he whispered in confirmation to her unasked question.

"Can we please come in?" Lorelai then called out to her. "I promise we won't bite." Jess rolled his eyes but wondered if it'd work. He hoped it would.

The girl called back, "Who are you?" She sounded scared and threatened and didn't seem at all convinced that Lorelai's playful sentiment could be trusted.

"Hi," Jess chimed in. "I met you last week. I was the messenger?" He hated speaking through the door, it was so awkward and what if her neighbors were home and could hear them? "I brought a friend with me who I thought you'd like to talk to, that's all." Lorelai half-chuckled to herself.

"A friend?" she whispered mockingly.

"Shut up," Jess replied, annoyed at being teased.

Suddenly, the door opened, and there she was. Jess's description had been correct; she was clearly very young, tiny in figure, and at least eight months along.

Lorelai smiled gently at her after taking in her appearance. "Hi, I'm Lorelai. You've met Jess, and what's your name?"

"I'm..." she started, hesitating. "I'm Clara."

"Hi, Clara," Lorelai said sweetly, much the way she'd sound if she'd been talking to a child who was much younger than the one standing in front of her. Clara seemed so timid, so fragile. "May we please come in?"

Clara bit her lip as she considered what to reply, clearly torn.

"We'll leave the _moment_ you ask us to, I promise," Lorelai added, trying to convince her.

Jess stood there silently, waiting for the girl's response, hoping she would allow them in. Before she had a chance to reply, however, Clara abruptly winced, squeezing her eyes tight and clutching her side. Lorelai and Jess looked at each other, thinking the same thing. Jess verbalized the thought first.

"Are you in labor?" he asked, concerned. He and Lorelai both watched her intently as she took a deep breath and met their eyes slowly, clearly wishing they hadn't witnessed what had just happened. She immediately shook her head vigorously.

"No, I'm fine, really. That was nothing." Her voice trembled as she spoke the words. She seemed to want to convince herself as much as the two strangers in her doorway. "I think you better leave." But they remained there, eyes glued to her, so she added in a desperate whisper, "Please."

Lorelai hated to go back on her word so quickly after having promised to leave the moment Clara asked, but things had changed, and Lorelai was not about to leave a girl who was potentially in labor alone. Within the past year Lorelai had been there for the birth of Sookie's first child and the previous year she had been there for Sherry, and both experiences were fresh in her mind. Both had also been a vivid reminder of how terrifying it was to go through that ordeal and how helpful it was to have someone there for you.

"I only had my walkman and some Nena with me when I went into labor," Lorelai told the girl. "But we're here," she continued, gesturing between herself and Jess, "and we can help you if you're in labor. If you don't want anyone else at the hospital, then we don't have to call anyone." Lorelai remembered the note she'd left which she'd regretted the moment her mother had shown up to yell at her through her labor pains. "I left a note but I wouldn't recommend that if you don't want anyone to show up, and if you _do_ want someone there, then phone calls might be more practical," Lorelai advised.

Jess kept looking at the girl but his ears were focused on Lorelai's words. He was so glad she was sharing some of her story with the girl and he sincerely hoped it would help her. He also found the details he was learning about her experience very enlightening.

"You left a note?" Clara asked quietly, looking up at her. Lorelai nodded.

"Yeah, I was still living with my parents at the time, but I didn't exactly feel like my judgmental mother would be a comfort to have in the delivery room with me." Lorelai said it as matter-of-factly as she could muster, trying to suppress the feelings that resurfaced as she recollected the day. "I called a cab and got myself to the hospital." Lorelai considered adding that her mother showed up anyway, but figured it was an irrelevant detail so she held her tongue.

"How old were you?" Clara seemed quite curious now and Jess resisted the urge to smile, pleased that his plan was working out perfectly so far.

"I was fifteen when I got pregnant; sixteen when my daughter Rory was born," Lorelai replied with a hint of pride.

Jess couldn't even imagine having a baby at his current age of nineteen, and was amazed at how well Lorelai had done. He was especially impressed because he had grown up with Liz as his mother, who had been a whole two years older than Lorelai. She'd done a horrible job at parenting and when he was younger he'd blamed that, in part, on her age. He'd justified that no one could handle that kind of responsibility at only age eighteen. But after meeting Lorelai and Rory, he'd realized that had never been a good excuse. You could be a good mother regardless of what age you become one. He looked back at Clara, noticing her eyes had dropped to the floor when she'd heard Lorelai's answer.

"Oh," she replied, her disappointment evident in her voice.

"Why? How old are you?" Lorelai questioned back. Clara darted her eyes away and started to fidget a little, playing with her shirt sleeve.

"I'm only fourteen," she answered, barely audible. Jess had never seen anyone look or sound so ashamed, and it made him very uncomfortable. He wanted to do something, _anything,_ to stop her from feeling this way.

"That's okay," Lorelai softly said, reaching out to touch her shoulder as lightly as possible. Clara turned back to her and regained eye contact.

She experienced another contraction, and Jess couldn't just stand there any longer. "Clearly, you need to get to the hospital," he noted, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure those two were less than five minutes apart," Lorelai commented with concern.

"But my water hasn't broke or anything!" she protested.

"My water didn't break either," Lorelai told her knowingly. "Sometimes they have to break it for you. But you're in labor. You have to come with us," she insisted.

After a few moments, Clara reluctantly nodded and accepted the offer. Jess silently breathed a sigh of relief as she quickly grabbed her purse and then shut the door to the apartment behind her. Jess trailed behind them as Clara followed Lorelai back to her car. Clara climbed into the back, where Jess would have gladly gone instead had he gotten there first. He didn't though, and he also didn't want to waste time by asking her if she'd like to move once she was already getting situated, so he just took the passenger's seat. After everyone was buckled in, Lorelai asked "Now does anyone know where the hospital is?"

* * *

Once they arrived, Lorelai and Jess hung back as Clara was asked to fill out insurance paperwork. She seemed unsure of what to do, which wasn't surprising given her young age, and she took the writing implement nervously. Jess didn't want to invade her privacy so he sat down in an open waiting room chair, while Lorelai went over to her and offered to help in whatever way she could. Jess witnessed her get another contraction and wondered just how many more of those she would have to go through.

Jess's mother had miscarried a few times while he was pretty young. Her pregnancies were always both unplanned and unwanted, so the miscarriages weren't all that tragic. He'd seen some pregnant girls around his first high school – the one he'd attended before being sent to Stars Hollow. But he'd never really been around anyone going into labor before. This experience was all so new to him and he felt like he didn't belong here. He was no help and the whole thing just made him feel so uncomfortable. But at the same time he knew he couldn't leave.

Lorelai felt like fate had it in for her. As she treaded back over to the waiting are, she thought about how it seemed that at least once a year she was helping a new person have their first baby! She desperately hoped that Rory wouldn't be having one next year. She glanced over at Jess as she sat down in an open seat beside him, and she thought about Rory and Dean. She thought about how drastically things had changed. At this moment, Jess seemed to be a much more honorable nineteen-year-old than the man who had just cheated on his wife and taken Rory's virginity. Lorelai never would have imagined that Dean would turn out to be that kind of a guy... nor that Jess would be this kind of a guy that she saw sitting next to her out of the corner of her eye as she tried not to stare too obviously. She wouldn't have guessed in a million years that the town "hoodlum" would end up rescuing damsels in distress. She attempted not to smile in amusement at the thought but also found herself regretting a bit that she'd never given him the benefit of the doubt.

Turning back to look at the other pregnant women on this OB/GYN floor of the hospital, Lorelai remembered her dream from two years before where she had been pregnant with Luke's twins. She smiled at the thought and Jess noticed. He didn't say anything though, nor ask her why she was smiling. He just observed.

After a few minutes a nurse came over to fetch Lorelai and Jess and bring them over to the room where they had just situated Clara. They approached her cautiously, unsure of if she wanted them there. She gestured for them to come in while nodding, silently assuring them that it was alright for them to join her. She was now in a hospital gown and looked even smaller than she'd looked before because the gown was too big for her.

"Now I just want to make sure. You definitely don't want me to call anyone for you?" Lorelai asked her. Jess wondered who the father was and where her immediate family was. Clara seemed to be considering if there was anyone that she wanted there, undecided on an answer to Lorelai's question quite yet.

"Well," she said quietly. "I'd kind of like my brother to come, but I'm not sure if there's time for him to get here. And he doesn't know I'm pregnant... would you... only if you want to... maybe... tell him?" Clara looked at Lorelai with pleading puppy dog eyes. Lorelai took a moment to process the request. "You don't have to," Clara assured her. "I understand if you don't want to. Don't worry about it. It was inappropriate of me to ask," she mumbled.

"I can tell him," Jess announced from over near the door, and Lorelai and Clara turned to look at him, having almost forgotten he was still standing there. "I don't mind," he added strongly.

"Are you sure?" Lorelai and Clara asked in unison, which caused them both to smile and caused Lorelai to have to resist the childish temptation to say "jinx".

"I really wouldn't mind doing it either," Lorelai added.

"No it's fine, let me do it," Jess said, eager to finally be able to do something to help. "What's his phone number and where does he live?"

"His phone number is written down in my purse, which I think they put under my bed," Clara answered. "And he now lives in a place called Old Orchard which is technically in Pennsylvania... but it's only about two hours or so away from here. It's very close to New York. He lives with his wife & twin sons there. I haven't seen him for three years." She seemed nervous about telling him that last bit of information, as if it would make Jess reconsider agreeing to help. But it didn't. He just took in the information.

"Okay. Thanks," he replied simply. Then he went over to her bed and leaned down to look under it. Finding her purse, he glanced at her to double check that he had permission to look through it. She was just looking back at him, neither confirming nor denying his permission, but he assumed she was expecting him to find her brother's number and although he felt a tiny bit awkward looking through the purse for her, he did. He found a small slip of paper that only had "Andre" written on it and a phone number with a 610 area code. "Andre?" he asked her. She nodded. Jess asked if Lorelai would mind him borrowing her cell phone, since he figured she wouldn't. She handed it to him and he left Clara and Lorelai alone so that he'd have some privacy while making the phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Clara is a completely different girl than Dean's sister on the show. I made up an original character with the name Clara, completely forgetting about this one in-universe example of the name being used. Sorry about that. It was me being forgetful/sloppy in my naming choice.


	7. The Father

Gratefully taking the girly, light-pink cell phone from Lorelai, Jess walked out of the room holding Clara's brother's number carefully. When he was far enough down the hallway to be surely out of earshot, he dialed. It rang three times, and then a child's voice greeted him.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is Andre there?" Jess asked, regretting his choice of words the moment they were out of his mouth. The kid was so young, and was probably one of Andre's twin boys that Clara had told him about.

"I'm Shawn," he replied proudly, not answering the question. Jess closed his eyes and considered for a moment what best to say next.

"Hi, Shawn. Is your dad there?" he asked, his voice suddenly in "little kid mode," something he wasn't aware he spoke. He didn't get ridiculously high-pitched like some people did when talking to young children but his voice got softer and gentler in a way, and his sentences a bit slower. His voice was suddenly shifted into an "I'm on your level" type of tone; it came naturally without him really planning for it.

"No," the kid answered simply. Jess tried to keep his patience and carefully considered what to say next.

"Okay. Well is your mom there... or a babysitter or any... grownup at all?" He really hoped this kid did have an adult taking care of him. Children as young as this one clearly was shouldn't be left alone; it was illegal for a reason. Never mind what Liz may or may not have done when Jess had been about that age. Luckily the kid answered with what Jess had hoped to hear.

"Yes."

"Okay, great. Can you please put that person on the phone for me?" Jess replied. He tried to ignore the feeling that this process was akin to pulling teeth. Why did any adult watching him even _let_ him answer the phone in the first place?

"Okay," the kid replied, and Jess listened carefully, waiting for a new voice to come onto the receiver.

"Hello? This is Pamela."

"Hi," Jess greeted. "I really need to speak with Andre. Do you have a cell phone number I could call or something?"

* * *

"So, Clara," Lorelai asked back in the hospital room. "If you don't mind me asking... who is the... um... you know... guy who got you pregnant?" She was too curious to resist asking this fourteen-year-old girl. She felt a little bad for prying, but for what it was worth she _tried_ to ask it as nicely as she could, leaving all assumptions and judgment out of her voice. "Do you... live with him?" she added cautiously in a quiet tone.

Clara bit her lip but nodded slightly and closed her eyes.

"You don't have to tell me," Lorelai added gently, worried she might be upsetting Clara too much. Lorelai's worry increased dramatically when she noticed a few tears start to stream down her face.

"Aw, I'm _so_ sorry for asking!" Lorelai apologized. "I let my curiosity get the best of me sometimes," she explained. She felt so bad seeing Clara cry and wanted to just give the girl a hug.

"No, it's okay," Clara quietly said, looking back up at Lorelai for a moment before closing her eyes again. "Promise not to tell anyone?" Clara breathed.

"I promise," Lorelai whispered back. Keeping her eyes closed, Clara started to explain.

"My dad died when I was really little, before I can remember... and about a year... and a half ago my mom died too," she told Lorelai, barely audibly. "And so I... I live with my stepfather now," she said, even quieter.

Lorelai barely had time to comprehend the tragedy of this young girl's life before realizing what the last part actually meant. The father of her baby... was her stepfather?!

"Oh, no..." Lorelai said back to her, shaking her head, hoping it wasn't true - that she'd misinterpreted Clara somehow. Clara opened her eyes and looked up at Lorelai. She nodded ever so slightly, trying to confirm Lorelai's thoughts.

"He didn't... _start_... until after my mom was dead," she added, wanting to convey more of the story to Lorelai if possible. Just then she experienced another contraction though, forcing a pause in her story. Lorelai took her hand and tried to help her through it in whatever way she could, still in shock about what she'd just learned.

* * *

Jess hung up the phone, thinking it had gone smoother than he'd thought it would. Andre's wife seemed very reasonable and kind. He trusted that she'd tell her husband everything about his sister, and that not only Andre but his whole family too would be coming here to meet Clara in the hospital as soon as possible. She hadn't been willing to give Andre's number away to a stranger, so Jess had just explained the whole story to her and when he'd finished, she didn't accuse him of being the father or any of the other things he'd been afraid might happen during the call. She seemed to actually appreciate how important to Clara this would be, and she seemed to really care.

Smiling to himself and proud of what he'd just accomplished, he headed back to the hospital room. He saw the door was still open and figured that meant it was still safe to reenter. Lorelai and Clara were deep in a very quiet conversation, however, he realized as soon as he walked in. They stopped as soon as they noticed his presence and he immediately felt like he'd intruded upon something intimate and important.

"I'm sorry," Jess said. "I can leave... if you want me to," he added, gesturing with his thumb toward the door he'd just walked in through. Lorelai looked at Clara, asking her silently what she wanted Jess to do.

"No, it's fine," Clara replied. "Did you talk to my brother?" she asked.

"No," Jess answered nervously, hoping it was okay that he'd told Pamela everything. He realized now, standing in front of Clara, that he may have betrayed her trust and done something she didn't want him to do. "I know you specifically wanted me to tell your brother, not your brother's wife... but I told her everything, and she said she would come with Andre and their kids as soon as possible and meet you here in the hospital."

"Oh wow. Thank you," Clara said with a smile, to Jess' relief. "Yeah I don't mind Pamela knowing, don't worry," she added.

Then she had another contraction, and during it, her doctor walked back into the room to check on her. Clara looked up at the woman who had introduced herself earlier as Dr. Simmons, and as Lorelai observed the young girl's face, she noticed that Clara looked both more scared and more comforted at the same time somehow, which Lorelai figured made sense. Doctors in general were there to help. They made you safer; this doctor in particular was here to make sure Clara and her baby both survived the dangerous ordeal of childbirth without complications, if at all possible. But the doctor also was the person who might tell her if something was wrong. Even though, logically, if something was wrong it'd be wrong whether or not the doctor verbalized it to her, and the sooner the doctor was aware of any problems or potential complications, the better for both her and her baby... it was always scary when the potential to receive such news was more immediate.

"We'll give you some privacy," Lorelai told Clara, looking at Jess to make sure he was on the same page. He nodded.

"You're in good hands," Jess added. "And we'll come back right after Dr. Simmons leaves, alright?"

"Sounds good," Clara replied with a meek smile. She seemed so nervous.

"You can relax," Dr. Simmons could be overheard saying to Clara as Jess and Lorelai exited the room. "I just need to check how dilated your cervix is."

Once outside, Jess and Lorelai looked at each other awkwardly. Lorelai had found out a new big detail about Clara's situation that Jess didn't know, but she couldn't tell him about it since she'd promised Clara she wouldn't tell anyone. Jess didn't really have anything new to say. Lorelai already knew what had happened on the phone with Andre's wife. So they stood in awkward silence, waiting. Jess was fairly content in the silence, although tempted to pull out the book stowed in his jacket pocket at the moment. Lorelai was busy thinking though, and decided, after only about a minute or so, to ask Jess a question that she knew she shouldn't be asking.

"So... Jess." She pursed her lips, knowing she shouldn't say the words she was about to say but unable to resist the temptation. Jess looked at her curiously, waiting.

"Yes?"

"Do you still love my daughter?"


	8. I Don't Know if We're Really Friends

"Do you still love my daughter?"

Jess was taken aback by the question, to say the least. He stood there, blinking a few times but betraying no emotion.

"Why?" he asked her cautiously.

"No reason," Lorelai replied, smiling a bit. "I just... you do, don't you?"

Jess shrugged while darting his eyes away a bit nervously.

"What did Rory tell you about, uh... our most recent encounter?" Jess awkwardly asked her. He figured Lorelai wouldn't have been thrilled that he'd tried to steal her daughter away here to New York.

"I heard you told her you loved her back in February," Lorelai replied. "And then just drove away," she added, eying him skeptically, as if trying to gauge any reaction and figure out what he had been thinking at the time. Jess' eyes opened just a tad wider at this news – Lorelai didn't realize what she'd just revealed to him. Lorelai didn't realize that there had been a more recent encounter.

"I... I hope Rory won't mind me telling you this," Jess started to respond, "but um... I'm surprised she didn't tell you herself." Lorelai felt herself tense up, unsure of what she might find out as Jess continued. "Um... a little over a week ago it was my mom's wedding, you know?" Lorelai nodded. "And well..." he trailed off, thinking maybe Rory didn't tell her mother for a reason.

"Just tell me," Lorelai pleaded in a quiet tone, desperate to find out whatever it was that her daughter had refrained from mentioning. She stared at him, but he was still avoiding eye contact with her. He seemed quite torn about whether or not to tell her anything... or maybe he was just deciding how much to reveal. Or how to say it. Lorelai tried to be patient.

Before Jess actually got around to responding, Dr. Simmons had finished up with Clara and exited the room.

"You two can go back in and be with her now, if you'd like," she told Jess and Lorelai.

They looked at each other awkwardly after the doctor had unknowingly interrupted a somewhat important moment for them. Something had been just about to come out of Jess' mouth and Lorelai wanted to know what it was going to be. Jess, on the other hand, would rather escape and just join Clara.

"Jess, _please_ just tell me what happened," Lorelai said. "Clara will be fine by herself for just two minutes."

"Alright," Jess agreed. "So basically, I... I said goodbye to my mom, and Luke, after the wedding was over. And then... well I'd heard at the wedding that Rory was still at Yale that weekend, so I decided to find her." He looked up at Lorelai and she did look a bit surprised, but she was also clearly waiting to hear more.

"So I found her with Dean right by her dorm," Jess continued, and he thought he noticed Lorelai react when he said Dean's name. It was a very brief and subtle reaction though. He wasn't sure, but maybe he was over-reading into things. "Dean left, and I, well..." Jess faltered, and looked down toward his feet to half-mumble the next part. "I asked her to come away to New York with me."

"You what?" Lorelai asked, very surprised. Jess ignored the question.

"So, I mean, she turned me down. She um... she confirmed that she really doesn't want to be with me," he finished sadly, unable to hide his disappointment at what her response was.

"So the answer is definitely a 'yes' then, I guess," Lorelai replied, mainly for her own benefit.

"What?" Jess looked back up at her.

"Yes, you still are in love with my daughter," she clarified, an unexpected amount of sympathy and understanding in her tone.

Jess didn't respond; he just breathed slowly, staring back at Rory's mother for a moment and wondering what she was thinking. She was correct, of course, but he didn't feel the need to nod or confirm that in any way – he figured him simply not denying it would be confirmation enough that she was correct.

"Clara's probably wondering what's keeping us," Jess finally said. Lorelai nodded and closed her eyes, preparing herself to move from one fairly intense revelation back to the more intense Clara situation.

They walked back into the hospital room, both Lorelai and Jess feeling awkward and unsure of where they stood with one another. Lorelai greeted the girl with a grin, walking over to the other side of her bed and putting her hand on her shoulder. Jess smiled at Clara too but was still distracted by what had just happened out in the hallway. He wondered if Lorelai was mentally preparing a "stay away from my daughter and please move on" speech, and meanwhile Lorelai had stopped smiling at Clara and instead her gaze had drifted off aimlessly because she was busy trying to figure out why Rory hadn't told her what had happened.

Lorelai remembered it was only the night before last when she had caught Rory with Dean, and she tried to remember exactly what her daughter had said then. Rory had said that _Dean_ loved her. Rory had used the phrase " _my_ Dean" at some point. She'd talked about how she was better for Dean than his wife Lindsay was. But she'd never said she loved Dean. Not in that whole long speech of defense. Lorelai would have remembered.

And when Rory had told Lorelai about Jess saying "I love you," then leaving... she hadn't ever specifically told Lorelai that she _didn't_ love him. Lorelai was so lost in these thoughts about her daughter's messy love life that it showed on her face and Jess grew a little more concerned that she was really upset at hearing about his encounter with Rory at Yale.

Clara was watching them in silence, trying to gauge their faces. To Clara, it looked like they were both in a state of worry at the moment and they also, other than briefly smiling in her direction, now seemed almost to be avoiding looking at her. After what felt like far too long of an awkward silence, she asked a question she really didn't want to have to ask.

"Did you tell him or something?"

Hearing the girl's scared and quiet voice, Jess and Lorelai both returned their focus to her.

"What?" Jess asked, confused. Lorelai took a second to comprehend the question.

"Oh gosh, no. I'm so sorry," she said. She was sorry for making Clara worry that her secret had been revealed and also sorry for ignoring her so much since returning to the room. She deserved to be the center of attention right then; it wasn't fair for Lorelai to be so distracted by thoughts of her own daughter. Rory's life had been so much easier than Clara's and Clara needed someone to be thinking about her right now. Clara clutched her abdomen in pain again and Lorelai gently brushed a stray and sweaty hair out of the girl's face, hoping she'd appreciate the gesture.

Jess pretended to ignore the fact that he was being kept out of the loop about something. He waited until the contraction had finished, then decided to move onto a safer topic to distract everyone in the room from everything they may have been thinking about.

"So it's been a while since you've seen your brother and his family?" Jess asked.

"Yeah," Clara replied. "I met Pamela a few times before their wedding, and she was really nice to me the whole weekend when they got married, and then about a year later I became an aunt," she said. "My mom took me to go see the babies when they were about six months old. Shawn and Trevor," she added with a smile. "They were adorable and fun to play with. And there was nothing quite as cute as seeing Andre around them. I never really had seen my big brother as a baby person but he was just so happy to have children - you could tell."

"And that was the last time you saw them?" Lorelai asked.

"Well, yeah, unfortunately. When my mom died, Andre said he... he didn't want to come to the funeral."

Jess and Lorelai looked at each other, unsure of how to react to that. Both Jess and Lorelai had less than stellar relationships with their own mothers, but still would probably go to their funerals if they died.

"It's not 'cause he hated her or something," she explained, seemingly reading their minds. "I think... he just didn't want to cry in front of everyone. He was really sad." With an air of lingering sorrow she added softly, "We both were."

Lorelai and Jess both nodded, their hearts breaking for this little girl. Neither of them had ever really experienced true loss like that before. Lorelai's grandmother had died and she saw what that was like for her father, and she'd been scared when her father had been hospitalized because of his heart, but she couldn't really relate, especially not back when she'd only been fourteen-years-old. Jess had experienced a little more, because growing up he'd known a few kids who'd OD'ed and another who had committed suicide... and also one of Liz's nicer boyfriends had died... but he'd never been really close to any of those people. They could both see this girl's grief was still felt strongly, and Jess wondered exactly how recent the death had been – although he knew it must have been within the past three years.

"Tell me something about your lives!" Clara requested, trying to lighten the mood. "Do either of you have any nieces or nephews?" she wondered.

"Oh um, no," Lorelai answered on behalf of them both. "Jess and I are both only children."

"Oh," Clara replied, a bit disappointed that her idea to take the conversation in a new direction had fallen flat. "Um, well, Lorelai, you said you had a... daughter, was it?"

"Yes," Lorelai replied, smiling. "Rory. Jess here dated her," she added, jokingly pointing her elbow in his direction, across the hospital bed.

"Oh, interesting. Yeah I had kind of been wondering how you two became friends," Clara said with a little laugh.

"Yeah I don't know if we're really friends," Jess quickly clarified, looking over at Lorelai.

"Oh, sorry..." Clara started to apologize, but Lorelai interrupted her.

"Oh Jess, stop it," Lorelai said, rolling her eyes. "Clara, don't worry. Jess is just being Jess. So you were asking about Rory? She's a student at Yale, and is on that university's school newspaper too. That's her dream job, to become a reporter," she explained with pride.

"She told me, more specifically, that she wanted to become a foreign correspondent," Jess added. Lorelai nodded to confirm that this was still true.

"Wow," Clara replied.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she was only eight when she started reading newspapers practically all the time," Lorelai gushed. "She adored literature and poetry too, more than your average kid; and I always imagined she'd grow up to be an author. But, one day she told me journalism was actually her calling."

Jess just listened as she kept talking. She started telling stories he'd never heard before. He was learning things about Rory as a child that he'd never known. And, as Lorelai talked about her little girl, her face just lit up. He thought back to the Lorelai who'd judged him as rotten pretty much from the get-go and had never trusted him. Today, she had been completely different. After she'd gotten him to tell her things that he never thought he'd confess to anybody, he was sure she'd want to kill him. Instead, she was remarkably sympathetic. With everything that had happened today, she hadn't even once gotten angry with him or made him regret opening his mouth. As he stood next to Clara's bed, continuing to be allowed to be silent, he truly appreciated how wonderfully she was able to keep the conversation going.

Perhaps Clara's assumption was correct. He couldn't believe he was admitting it. But, when she'd said the two of them were friends, Lorelai didn't act like the idea was so crazy. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible for things to really change. Jess looked over at Lorelai, who was still excitedly recounting things a young Rory had done, and the corners of his mouth lifted just a little as he resisted the urge to smile.


	9. Andre

Lorelai was still telling Clara stories about Rory when Clara's brother and his wife arrived along with their sons. The door to the room was ajar and the twin boys just came running in, having gotten a few paces ahead of their parents. Despite the children drawing attention to themselves with their loud footsteps and chorus of "Hi, Aunt Clara!", Jess ignored them and instead looked back over toward the doorway. He watched closely, ready to take in Andre's full appearance the moment he arrived. He and his wife showed up at the same time.

"Trevor! Shawn!" Pamela scolded the boys loudly. She looked up to Clara and offered an apologetic smile as she entered the room. "Would you prefer if they stayed outside in the waiting area?" she kindly asked her sister-in-law. Clara shook her head.

"They should stay," she then answered with a smile, glancing back at the twins. They both were now eying her very pregnant abdomen with intense curiosity. Lorelai walked around the bed in order to greet Pamela with a friendly handshake and introduce herself.

Jess wasn't paying much attention to what was happening beside him in the room though. His focus was still directed toward the man at the door. Clean shaven, neatly dressed, and barely taller than Jess himself, Andre didn't seem to be too scary of a guy. He was looking over at Clara, who hadn't looked back at him yet. She had been distracted by the three new people who had actually entered the room, and so she hadn't yet noticed that her brother, the only person she'd wanted to be here for her, had arrived. He was lingering, lightly fingering the doorknob, clearly taking his time to absorb the shocking sight of his baby sister being so pregnant. Jess wanted to read his emotions, and was fully prepared to attempt to protect Clara from any additional and unnecessary emotional distress. So he tried to see if her brother seemed angry at all, or even just disappointed in her... something clear on his face that would be legitimate cause for Jess to worry.

Andre _was_ clearly upset, but not at Clara. Jess watched his slow and light little movements. He watched the muscles around his mouth. He saw exactly how his eyes stayed on Clara. Andre seemed to be purely upset _for_ Clara.

Jess relaxed a bit, hoping his assessment of this man was correct. Clara finally looked toward the door and saw him. She smiled widely, clearly thrilled to see him, but then as he smiled back, her smile lessened and she started to cry a little. Lorelai looked back and forth between the siblings, a bit confused. She closed the gap between herself and the bed.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Lorelai asked Clara quietly and sympathetically, despite not knowing what prompted the girl's tears. Andre started approaching her quickly and Lorelai nervously watched the scene play out. He sat gently on the edge of her bed and then wrapped his arms around her in a loving hug. She squeezed back tightly and Lorelai and Jess both felt relieved to see her reciprocating the hug so strongly.

"I just really missed you," Clara whispered to her brother, just barely loud enough for Jess to hear.

He was tempted to leave the family members alone to catch up, bond, or do whatever they wanted without these strangers being present. So he glanced over at Lorelai. She met his gaze and he gestured subtly with his head, his eyebrows silently questioning her. She understood.

"Jess and I are going to go find some coffee," she explained as she started to head toward the door. Jess followed her out of the room.

"Sorry I said 'coffee', it was just the first-"

"First thing to come to your mind?" Jess completed her sentence for her. They smiled a little.

"But seriously," she said, "if you'd like to do something else, we could."

Jess considered for a moment.

"I guess we could eat some lunch," he suggested.

"Sounds reasonable," Lorelai replied. She then nodded purposefully and started walking quickly. Jess didn't quite know what her rush was, seeing as they actually were attempting to _kill_ time, but when he caught up with her she was already looking at the hospital map which was on a placard conveniently located beside the elevator doors.

"Floor 5" she declared, having already determined the location of the cafeteria.

Jess was surprisingly pleased with the number of healthy and simple food choices in the hospital cafeteria, but because of the absurdly high prices he chose only one small item to eat – a pre-made turkey sandwich. He would find a water fountain later to quench his thirst.

Lorelai, on the other hand, bought so many different items that they barely all fit on her tray. She chose some healthy options like an apple and a pear from the assorted fruit basket, and a salad from the salad bar which she made quite a bit less healthy by using an excessive amount of creamy dressing on it. She also grabbed a grilled cheese sandwich that, until he saw Lorelai grabbing it, Jess had assumed only children bought . Then, she opted for some red jello, remarking about how she'd always wanted to try hospital jello, and that this would be a rite-of-passage for her. Lastly, she got herself a large coffee.

When they started eating, it was in almost complete silence. Jess was eating his sandwich slowly and neatly, but Lorelai was slurping her coffee, and in the effort to get her fork to stab a single, excessively dressing-filled piece of lettuce, was making a lot of noise. When she got around to biting into her apple and chewing the crunchy fruit loudly, Jess scowled a little. He knew Lorelai never ate apples. Rory and Lorelai never had eaten anything healthy, usually not even a salad, when they went to Luke's. And he knew Lorelai's outside-of-Luke's eating habits a bit too because when he'd been alone and eating with Rory, like in many other situations with Rory, she never could stop talking about her mother.

"You are aware that's fruit?" he asked simply. She took a moment to swallow, and then she looked confused for a moment as she glanced back and forth between Jess and her apple. Understanding came over her. Her eyes widened and she started to nod.

"I never eat apples; right. Well... I mean I did when I was pregnant with Rory. I loved apples back then. I craved _healthy_ food, it was freakish. But now... well obviously that's not the reason right now... I mean it's technically been too long since I've even..."

Jess smirked a little, wondering if she'd really start discussing her own sex life in front of him... during their hospital cafeteria lunch.

"Maybe I'm just thinking too much about being pregnant with Rory, being around Clara so much and talking to her about it and stuff. Yeah. That's probably it," she ended, satisfied enough with her own conclusion. Jess didn't reply in any way, and Lorelai didn't seem to even mind. She'd, by now, gotten fairly used to Jess' extremely quiet habits.

After that, they returned to eating without speaking, with the noise of Lorelai's chewing and slurping and vigorous stabbing of various pieces of lettuce still filling the silence.

"The coffee at Luke's is eons better than this," Lorelai commented after drinking her entire cup.

"Eons?" Jess asked her, not really confused but teasing her a little over her poor use of the English language.

"It makes sense... you understood me!" she quickly retorted. "Therefore it should be perfectly acceptable word-usage." She seemed so sure that she was right about this, and not the least bit embarrassed.

Jess considered what it would be like to write a whole book in that manner. Using words incorrectly at least once per sentence or something insane, but still somehow making his chapters understandable. It would be a kind of fun exercise for him, just a challenge to see if he could do it. He was tempted to mention this thought to Lorelai, but decided against it.

When they returned to the room, Clara looked happier than ever, fully enjoying her family's company. Pamela was in the middle of telling Clara a cute story about something Trevor had done, so Lorelai and Jess both lingered near the door. Andre noticed them standing there and headed out to talk to them as his wife finished the anecdote.

"Thank you for bringing her here," he said to both of them, shaking both of their hands now because he had not done so earlier, his eyes darting from Lorelai to Jess.

"No problem," Lorelai replied. "I'm Lorelai, by the way."

"And I'm Jess. I just needed to make sure she was okay," he added.

"Well I really appreciate it," Andre said sincerely. He glanced back toward his wife and sister.

"Are you planning to help her after the baby is born?" Lorelai asked. Andre nodded.

"I think we have to. Clara won't tell me who the father is..." he trailed off, looking awkwardly at Jess for a moment. Jess was standing still, calmly awaiting what Andre would say next... half expecting an accusation. His expression was deliberately passive. "It's definitely not you, right?" he asked Jess very directly.

"No." Jess replied simply, not acting defensive in the slightest. Lorelai was impressed at how he was keeping his composure.

"Okay," Andre replied, satisfied enough with the answer. He turned back to glance toward his sister. Talking more to himself than anyone, he continued, "I didn't really think it was you anyway. Clara was acting really weird when I asked her about the father." Jess tensed up a bit, still not knowing who the father of Clara's baby was or what exactly he'd done, but already hating the guy, almost instinctively. He wasn't here, after all. Andre turned back toward Jess. "And she acted very differently when she was discussing you."

"Yeah, so um..." Lorelai tried to think of a polite way to phrase her question. She didn't want to tell Andre outright what he should do. But she was the only person other than Clara herself who knew about the awful situation with her stepfather – with whom she was still currently residing. Lorelai could not stop thinking about that fact and needed to make sure Clara would be removed from such a horrific environment. "What is the plan for after her baby arrives?"

"Oh..." I seemed that Andre didn't quite have a plan yet. "I'm not sure."

"Well maybe we can ask Clara and see what she wants?" Jess suggested. Andre nodded and Lorelai didn't think it was all that bad of an idea either. The three of them headed back into the room and Clara looked up.

"Hey there!" she greeted Lorelai and Jess. I told my brother and Pamela _everything_ you've done for me today, both of you. I..." she hesitated, her eyes darting down for a moment. She finished very quietly, "I will never forget any of it."

"Aw, wow... thank you, we were happy to help," Lorelai replied graciously, looking over to Jess. "It was all his doing really."

"Yeah," Clara replied. "Well... really thank _you_ even more then, I guess!" she said directly to Jess. He awkwardly looked down and averted his eyes from everyone in the room. He didn't know what to say, nor where to look. He wasn't used to getting complimented about anything, ever.

Andre then decided it was time to pose the question.

"Clara, what do you want to do after the baby's born?" He'd tried to ask it as kindly and non-judgmentally as possible. Her eyes got a bit wide and she started to squirm a bit in her hospital bed, clearly uncomfortable about the question.

"I was thinking..." she started slowly, glancing at Lorelai nervously for a moment before continuing... "of maybe giving the baby up for adoption." She kept her eyes glued to her brother's face after she finished, waiting for his reaction with bated breath. He took a moment to let the concept sink in, then nodded understandingly.

"You're quite young," he said. "That makes sense. I definitely don't have a problem with you doing that." Clara breathed a small sigh of relief and looked back down at her hugely pregnant belly. "But giving away your baby will be really hard... you know that, don't you?" She looked back at him then started to nod. Just then another contraction started for her, and Andre gently took her hand to help her through it. Lorelai and Jess slowly started to back away.

Pamela's attention was currently focused on the boys, who seemed to be fighting over which one of them would get to be the first one to play with a single Game Boy Advance. Andre stood there gently encouraging her, trying to help while Clara attempted to breathe through her pain. When the contraction passed, Clara looked up at Lorelai and so the Gilmore approached her.

"You were almost as young as me when you had your daughter, and you don't regret having her," she said knowingly. Lorelai shrugged a little and nodded slowly, not wanting to be too enthusiastic about just how amazing having Rory was for her when dealing with a girl who was considering the option to not be a mother, at least not just yet.

"You had a daughter when you were Clara's age?" Andre commented, surprised.

"Well, I was sixteen when Rory was born," she clarified. Lorelai tried to remember something from back when she was only fourteen-years-old, but couldn't really. Clara seemed so much younger than Lorelai remembered being when she was in the hospital, in labor with Rory. But maybe if her current self had been looking back on her sixteen-year-old self, she'd realize just how young she'd really been with new perspective. She contemplated silently while Clara continued to do the same, though about two much more realistic scenarios than Lorelai's imagined time-travel.

"If I give the baby up, I might regret it..." she said, mainly to herself.

"Well even if you do regret it," Jess quietly said, introducing himself into the conversation, "at least your kid will be with someone who loves them and who _can_ take care of them."

Clara watched Jess closely, waiting for him to continue.

"I'm just saying... it would have been much better for _me_ if my mom had realized she wasn't ready to be a mother. She was older than you... and older than Lorelai was... but she was still younger than I am now," he commented sadly. "And she just was not cut out for motherhood."

Clara took in his words and considered them. "So if I choose to keep my baby and I regret it, it'd be bad not only for me but for my... son or daughter too."

Lorelai looked from Clara to Jess. She understood why Clara wasn't ready to be a mother. But, whatever Jess had suffered in his life, from what little she knew about Liz which was mainly from what Luke had told her, Lorelai knew that Clara would never be nearly as horrible a parent as Liz. Lorelai felt sympathy toward Jess, she truly did, but she wasn't sure if he really was giving Clara quite the right advice in that moment.

"I don't think your son or daughter would suffer if you really tried your hardest to raise him or her," Lorelai dissented. "Especially not if Andre and his family are willing to help you."

Jess was a little stunned that Lorelai was saying these things to Clara.

"I think you should decide for yourself," Pamela said softly to Clara, having heard only the most recent part of the conversation, but getting the general gist just the same. The boys were now quietly cooperating with each other and their mother was able to leave them on the floor while she joined the other adults. "Whichever way you go, it will be the right decision. I don't have any doubt about that."

Clara nodded and everyone else agreed to let the subject drop, at least for now.

"So, just the other day the boys learned how to use the telephone in their preschool classes," Andre began. Everyone else turned to look at him intently. "It reminded me so much of when Clara was about their age."

"Really?" Clara seemed so genuinely pleased to have come up in her brother's thoughts.

"Yeah," he said, nodding and smiling. "You used to hold the phone with two hands, just like I saw Trevor doing, and suddenly I had this mental picture in my mind of you answering the phone like that." He looked over at his sister with affection. She beamed.

Andre shared some more funny stories about his memories of Clara when she was a little girl which Clara seemed to appreciate and everyone else, even Jess, found pleasant enough as a way to pass the time. After a while though, Lorelai took out her cell phone in order to check the time.

"So it's been really nice getting to know everyone here," she said. "But Jess and I probably should head out eat some dinner. Give you all some privacy for the evening. Right?" She didn't want to start imposing on their family too much.

"Are you leaving to go back to Connecticut?" Clara asked, full of trepidation. Jess looked to Lorelai, wondering himself what her plan was.

"Oh no, of course not. We need to meet that little baby!" Clara smiled, relieved that Lorelai wanted to stay for that. "I'm also very curious to find out if you're going to go the adoption route or not," she added. "And I agree with Pamela, by the way." She looked at Jess for a moment, then turned back to the girl. "Only you can know what you want for your child."

* * *

Before leaving the hospital, Lorelai and Andre exchanged phone numbers and Clara promised to make sure someone would notify Lorelai and Jess as soon as the baby was born. Jess and Lorelai decided it probably was best to not return to the hospital until then, unless Clara changed her mind and wanted them there sooner. They also promised not to stray too far from the hospital, so that returning would be fairly quick.

For dinner, Jess took Lorelai to one of his favorite restaurants, one that happened to be surprisingly close to the hospital where Clara was. After finding a rare $5 parking lot three blocks away for Lorelai's jeep, they walked inside. It was a one-of-a-kind diner that really reminded Lorelai of Luke's. Lorelai even spotted a "no cell phones" sign, and while it lacked the cute picture, she still felt like maybe she was back in Star's Hollow for half of a second. Lorelai considered maybe Jess had been a bit "homesick" for Luke or Star's Hollow when he'd discovered this place, but she didn't want to embarrass him by bringing it up and drawing attention to that fact. She smiled at the cuteness of the idea though. Jess was so much more of a softy than she'd ever realized. When they finished eating, Lorelai politely paid for her own meal, and Jess was thankful, realizing just how low on cash he was. Lorelai was tempted to offer to pay for his, but she figured he wouldn't take that too well.

After dinner, Lorelai insisted on buying a room with two beds at a nearby hotel, even though Jess said he could just meet up with Lorelai in the morning. Jess was willing to return to his own apartment and roommates for the night to save a little money but Lorelai said she didn't mind covering the fairly low cost of an extra bed. When she reminded him that they'd promised to stay close to Clara, he gave in.

It was still fairly early when they checked into the hotel - much too early for sleeping. So Jess opened his bag of clothes and got out a book to read. Lorelai was instantly reminded of being in that awful Chesire Cat B&B just about three years prior. Rory had been reading a book in much the same way in order to pass the time while she'd waited for Lorelai to wake up. Thinking about Rory made her very sad, though, because it reminded her of the current cold war she and her daughter currently seemed to be in. She glanced down at her cell phone, wishing she could just call Rory in Europe right then and there. She had talked about Rory so much that day, and now what she really needed was to hug Rory tightly and never let her go. She was so glad she'd had a baby at sixteen and had chosen to keep her.

She was still staring at her phone when it rang. She jumped from the sound, even though the vibration had started a second or so earlier. Jess didn't even notice her move, he was so engrossed in his book. Lorelai half laughed at herself, then answered it.

"Hi, Luke," she said with a grin. "I'm really glad you called. I need to know all about working at a Renaissance Fair!"

"Geez, give me a second to ask you about your day first! I mean come on, you and Jess on a road trip together? A mysterious pregnant girl? I'm sure you have more to tell me. You already know the gist of what a Renaissance Fair is."

"No, I don't..." Lorelai pouted. "I've never been to one. Come on, Luke. You tell me first."

"Fine," he said, and Lorelai could just picture him rolling his eyes despite clearly being very amused by her insistence. "I just sold jewelry, people didn't buy much and Liz thinks it's because I refused to wear the ridiculous costume they'd picked out for me to wear."

"Costume?" Lorelai giggled. "Was it like what TJ wore for his wedding?"

"What? No, even Liz knew enough to know I'd never wear tights!" Lorelai laughed again.

Jess half-smiled into his book


	10. The Baby

Jess wasn't bothered by Lorelai talking to Luke on the phone for over an hour, telling him every single detail about their crazy day with Clara. He ignored most of it, getting immersed in his reading and passing the time in his own way. When Lorelai hung up the phone, she asked if it'd be alright to watch TV, and Jess assured her it wouldn't bother him. She flicked channels frequently while he absorbed the words on the pages. Her cell phone rang at one point, and she answered it, and then proceeded to have a very lengthy conversation with Sookie that seemed to be mainly a repeat of what she'd already told Luke. Jess' ears perked up at the mention of Europe though. He paused to pay attention.

"My mother suggested it spur of the moment," she explained, pausing to allow Sookie to say something on the other end of the line. "Exactly." Another short pause. "What? No, we're fine," Lorelai said, somewhat defensively.

Jess kept eavesdropping, but was getting a bit confused. He wished he could hear what Sookie was saying.

"Well, I'll see you soon," Lorelai said with a note of finality in her tone. "Bye."

Jess went back to his book.

* * *

Lorelai had forgotten that Jess snored. She tried to sleep through the night, but thoughts raced through her head and she couldn't even determine exactly why she was lying awake. It may have been the unfamiliar mattress and sheets that smelled of bleach; she was uncomfortable. The Independence Inn had always had much nicer beds and sheets than the average hotel, and that had been one of the things she'd kept in mind for the Dragonfly. Remembering the Dragonfly, she realized the thing keeping her from sleep could have very well been all of the things stressing her out, including her own inn that was right at the opening stage and still had _so many_ kinks to get worked out from a business standpoint… but also including the fact that she still was worrying about Rory… plus of course the huge detail Clara had confided in her _and only her._ Lorelai wished someone else knew about the whole unthinkably awful stepfather situation. Thinking some more, Lorelai came to the conclusion that maybe the only thing actually keeping her up was the noise her daughter's ex-boyfriend was making. All of the other things she would have been able to get past, but _damn, he was loud._ She grabbed her pillow and wrapped it around the back of her head, pressing it to her ears to try to block out the sound.

* * *

Jess woke up early and quietly picked up Lorelai's phone, just to make sure no one from the hospital had called them while he was sleeping. There was a chance Lorelai had accidentally put her phone on silent or something. But no one had called. The last activity on the phone was Sookie's call in the evening. He carefully placed the phone back down on the nightstand and then got himself dressed for the day. Afterwards, he sat down on the edge of his bed. He had actually finished reading his book the night before. Now, he was just bored. They didn't even have any food in their room, so it wasn't like he could eat breakfast. He could leave the room. He thought about the amount of cash he still had in his wallet. Three dollars. He was practically broke.

He treaded over to his bag and pulled out his little notebook and a pen. He'd try to write a little bit more of his… short novel. He'd mapped out chapter three in his head, more or less, when he'd driven back down to Stars Hollow two days ago, expecting to ask Rory his favor. So he started to write it. There wasn't just one main character. He was writing about a group of five young adults, and each of his chapters explored a different one's perspective. It was… very philosophical, but there was some plot mixed in too. He was actually excited to write Chapter Three. This was when the action really intensified, where there would be violence and outrage and some mystery that would hopefully be compelling for a potential reader. Not that he really planned to share this book with anyone. He was more… just writing it for himself. He had no intention of trying to get the thing published. It was an exercise, a test of his capabilities, and, at the moment, a way to pass the time until either the phone rang with news about Clara or until Lorelai woke up – whichever came first.

He'd been writing for a little over an hour, scribbling away ferociously when the phone did ring and broke his focus. Lorelai groggily reached over to answer it. Jess closed his notebook and hid it away in his bag before Lorelai would have a chance to notice him writing.

"Hello?" Lorelai mumbled, her voice laced with sleepiness. She paused and listened to the reply on the other end of the line. "Oh!" There was another pause. "Mmm-hmm."

Jess stood up and headed back over towards Lorelai.

"Sure," she said, sounding more awake. "We'll head right over. Sounds great!" She hung up.

Jess looked at her expectantly.

"Clara gave birth to a baby boy," Lorelai announced, smiling. She placed the phone back down on the nightstand and sat up more fully in her bed. "She'd love for us to meet him right away. I told Andre we'd be right there. Is that okay?"

Jess nodded. "Sounds good to me." He smiled a little.

"Okay. I'll just throw on some clothes," Lorelai said. She got up and headed to her gigantic suitcase. She pulled out a bunch of items, accidentally dropping a few on the hotel carpet in her haste. She carried what she needed to the bathroom and changed out of her pajamas in privacy.

When Lorelai emerged, Jess asked if they should just check out of the hotel now. He was ready to grab his bag and not leave anything behind in the room.

"Hmm," Lorelai replied, pursing her lips. She thought it over for a moment. "I think we should wait. Just in case, it'd be nice to keep the room if we need it. We can come back to check out."

"Alright," Jess agreed. The plan sounded fine to him. They headed out towards Lorelai's jeep.

* * *

They arrived at the hospital and headed up to the OB-GYN floor. Clara had been moved from a delivery room to a recovery room, but Lorelai and Jess were directed to the correct place immediately by Pamela, who was standing in the hallway by the elevators, waiting for them.

The baby was in the room with Clara, Andre, and the twin boys. Pamela led the new arrivals in. Jess realized he had never seen a newborn baby before. All the infants he'd encountered must have been at least a few weeks old, but this one here was clearly no more than a few hours old. He must have been the smallest he could possibly be while still being considered at a "healthy" weight. He was mesmerized by the tiny baby in the plastic bed.

Lorelai smiled at Clara and walked up to her. The fourteen-year-old smiled back, looking exhausted but truly happy.

"It's all over now. I bet you're relieved, right?" Lorelai remarked enthusiastically, glancing over at the infant.

"Very," Clara replied. "He's so beautiful, isn't he?" she commented, noticing where Lorelai's eyes were pointed.

"Mmm hmm," Lorelai agreed. "Does he have a name yet?"

Clara nodded. "I wasn't gonna name him, if I was going to give him up for adoption. I'd let his… real parents do that. But… Andre and Pamela said they'd help me, so… I really want to keep him."

Lorelai smiled, excited that the girl would get to keep her baby the way she'd kept Rory. It would be difficult and would forever change the young girl's life, and Lorelai wouldn't recommend that all fourteen-year-olds keep their babies. Still, she couldn't help but feel some genuine joy at the thought of this little boy being raised by these three sweet people. Plus, she didn't want Clara to suffer any more than she already had, what with the loss of her mother and the abuse from her stepfather… and giving up her child would have been another incredibly painful event. Lorelai wasn't sure Clara would actually be able to handle yet another crushing blow to her heart.

"I decided to name him Zachary," she said proudly.

Jess noticed she wasn't acting quite so timid anymore. He smiled to himself, happy for her, and looked back at the baby as she continued.

"Zachary Ryan Weaver, actually. Weaver's my last name, you know," she added, just in case Jess didn't know that yet. After all, Lorelai had been the only one to help her fill out her forms."

"Zachary. That is a beautiful name," Lorelai commented.

"I like it too," Jess added.

"I'd offer to let you hold him," Clara said, "but he's sleeping, so…"

"Of course," Lorelai replied. "We wouldn't want to wake him."

Jess was grateful to be able to avoid having to hold the baby. He had actually never held a baby before, and he was afraid he'd do it all wrong and potentially hurt him.

"So… are you going to leave to go back to Connecticut now?" Clara asked tentatively, a hint of sadness showing through in her voice.

"Well, it seems you're pretty well-covered here," Lorelai responded, nodding toward Pamela and Andre. The boys were busy trying to show their father something in their video game, but Andre ignored them for a moment to look back at Lorelai.

"Yeah, we're all set here," he replied with a smile. "Thanks for all of your help before we arrived. When Clara's all set to leave here, we'll just stop by the apartment and grab her things. She can also, of course, say her goodbyes to her stepfather, and then we'll head back to Pennsylvania."

Jess felt a little awkward at the thought of Clara returning to that apartment where he'd first met her. Even if it was only to grab a suitcase of clothing, for some reason Jess got the feeling that she shouldn't return.

How Jess felt was nothing, however, compared to Lorelai's thoughts and fears. Lorelai knew that stepfather Andre just mentioned was the father of this beautiful and fragile newborn. If they came by, and God forbid wanted to show off the baby, he might potentially attempt to kidnap the helpless thing. And besides, Clara was about to escape her abuser once and for all. Going back, however briefly, to talk to him seemed like a colossally bad idea. Lorelai made eye contact with Clara quickly, hoping to be able to gauge how Clara felt about this whole "return to the apartment" plan. Clara returned Lorelai's gaze for a moment, then darted her eyes away. This confirmed to Lorelai that Clara didn't like the plan at all.

"Oh, well…" Lorelai began, trying to figure out a way to save everyone. "How about I go and get what you need from the apartment?" she suggested directly to Clara. "You could make a list for me and lend me your key. I know where it is, and this way…" she hesitated, trying to figure out what the most convincing argument would be. She didn't want to betray Clara and let anyone else in the room in on the real reason she was offering this. "This way, you all will have one less thing to worry about. You could always say goodbye over the phone, right?"

Jess squinted at Lorelai. That last part was especially ridiculous. Someone like Lorelai would never think a phone call was just as good as an in-person goodbye. Lorelai and Rory were both the kinds of people who loved tight hugs and other _super_ touchy/feely things.

"Yeah," Clara answered Lorelai. "I'd really appreciate it if you did that for me."

"Oh… okay, then," Pamela added, sounding a little surprised. "Thank you for offering," she said sincerely.

"No problem."

"Hey, Lorelai?" Jess asked.

She turned to look at him.

"Can I speak with you, outside, for a moment?"

His tone made it clear to her that he knew something was up.

"Uh… sure," she answered, slightly nervously.

They headed out of the hospital room, and Lorelai closed the door behind them.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Lorelai asked lightly, hoping it wasn't what she already knew it was.

"What in the world is going on here?" Jess asked in a quiet yet demanding tone.

"What do you mean?" she replied with feigned confusion.

"Is… is her stepfather abusive or something?"

"How did you…?" Lorelai couldn't believe he'd guessed so correctly.

Jess didn't want to answer that too truthfully. He was far too experienced with how abusive stepfathers can sometimes be to their stepchildren. "It was the only thing that made sense," he replied.

"Well, um, yeah. Clara swore me to secrecy."

"I won't let her know. She'll never realize I know anything," Jess promised. "Just please, tell me everything" Jess figured he deserved to know the whole truth, after everything he'd just done to try to help her.

Lorelai's thoughts echoed his. "Her stepfather has been…" she began. She paused, and then shifted into a whisper. "Sexually abusing her."

Jess winced at this revelation, and then closed his eyes. He, luckily, had never been abused in _that_ way. He opened his eyes again.

"Is he the father?" he asked, surprisingly calmly. He just needed to know the facts.

"Yeah," Lorelai admitted in a grave tone.

"We need to report that bastard to the police," Jess said. "You _can't_ tell me you're okay with rapists going free."

Lorelai knew he made a good point.

"But… Clara," Lorelai tried to reason. "She would have to testify, and wouldn't it just be easier for her to put this all behind her?"

"She is going to be raising his _baby_ ," Jess replied, emphasizing what should have already been obvious. "This kind of thing is never really forgotten, anyway," he added.

"You're right," Lorelai said. She was so glad she had someone to discuss this with now. The secret had been weighing on her, and when she was carrying it alone, it was harder to see the whole thing clearly.

"So… what exactly are we gonna do?" Jess asked.

"I guess… I guess I need to get Clara alone, and convince her that she can't… and shouldn't… keep this a secret any longer. It's probably unhealthy, right?"

Jess nodded, his face maintaining a grave expression.

They both looked back toward the room containing the happy family. They dreaded what they were about to do to them. Their world would be turned upside down. Even the twin boys who were too young to really be privy to the important details would be affected in some way. This would be a necessary evil, an evil that, in reality, had already transpired. All Lorelai would be doing was bringing the facts into the light… but it still would, at least temporarily, really hurt them all.


	11. Facing Her Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was last updated in September 2013. I first posted the first chapter of the story to fanfiction.net in July 2011. I do want to finish this fic at some point, I swear. I'll try my best to write chapter 12 sometime relatively soon.  
> Until then, enjoy my Gilmore Girls vidding, if you get a chance. I have some specific playlists like Rory/Jess vids and Luke/Lorelai ones, and just a playlist of all of my Gilmore Girls vidding in general: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9B651FB614A100FE (I've probably forgotten to add some of my Gilmore Girls vids to that playlist but most should be there.)

It wasn't long until Clara needed time to rest and so all of her loving visitors left her hospital room. A nurse even rolled baby Zachary out, leaving the fourteen-year-old completely alone. She would presumably sleep peacefully in the quiet, empty room as a necessary step in recovering from the ordeal of childbirth. Lorelai knew that before anyone else reentered the room, she should go in there. This would be her best chance to be alone with Clara and discuss… what needed to be discussed.

Lorelai wanted to make sure Clara got at least _some_ sleep before disturbing her. She still felt somewhat torn about the idea of forcing Clara to face this, and she hated that she had to figure out a way to get into the room surreptitiously. She knew broaching the topic would upset Clara. Jess gave Lorelai a stern look, making it clear that backing out now was not an option. She had to go through with this, for Clara's sake.

Everyone was milling around the waiting area now, trying to pass the time. The boys continued to play their video game. They took turns, and whichever one was not playing at any given point spent a lot of time coaching his brother with insightful advice such as, "Don't do that!". Pamela and Andre quietly discussed some practical things, like which room would be converted to be a third bedroom in their house, now that Clara and the baby would need a place to sleep. Jess sat silently, people-watching. This floor of the hospital was not overly crowded, but there were still some eccentric characters around if you looked for them.

Lorelai felt her phone vibrate and reached into her purse to answer it. The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number. She answered it, knowing it must be her mother, calling her from Europe.

"Hi, Lorelai!" Emily shouted, unnecessarily loudly.

"The connection's crystal clear, Mom," Lorelai replied, finding her mother's incompetence equal parts amusing and annoying.

"We made it to our hotel in Paris. I planned a busy itinerary, and we spent the day going through my checklist of sights to see and whatnot."

Lorelai silently shook her head, knowing her mother was undoubtedly being insufferable about the itinerary. She wondered how Rory was handling it. Maybe Rory was loving it. Emily kept on jabbering.

"Now that it's almost supper time over here, I figured I should drop you a hello. We can fill you in on what _delicious_ French cuisine we sampled the next time we talk."

"Are you trying to rub it in my face?" Lorelai asked.

"What?"

"That you're having some of the finest food in Europe, and I'm… never mind," Lorelai finished, sighing in resignation.

"I was simply trying to share what we were doing," Emily replied, confused by Lorelai's reaction. "I will put Rory on the line now; don't worry," she added. Emily huffed slightly, clearly feeling Lorelai should be more appreciative of her overseas dialing.

Lorelai wasn't sure Rory would actually want to talk with her, but she waited patiently and listened intently, trying to hear what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. She couldn't make out anything.

After a full minute, Rory did indeed get on the line.

"Hello," she said stiffly.

"Hello," Lorelai said back, imitating her tone in a fairly childish way.

"Paris is lovely. I'm seeing some parts of it I didn't see when we backpacked together," Rory said, almost defensively. She seemed determined to assert that her choice to suddenly drop everything and abandon Lorelai for Europe was one she did _not_ regret.

"That's great," Lorelai replied, practically in monotone.

"So… what's new in your life?" Rory asked without any of her usual sincerity. She didn't seem to care about the answer. She was just making small talk because she _had_ to. Because Emily was standing within earshot, probably.

Lorelai hesitated. There was _so much_ to tell her, but she almost felt like her daughter didn't _deserve_ to know any of it yet. Plus given the people in the hospital waiting area within earshot… telling her anything about Clara or Jess would be awkward. She desperately wanted to share everything with Rory, though. So she decided to start off simple.

"A lot, actually." A lot _was_ new in her life as of late.

"Really?" Rory asked, this time sounding genuinely surprised, but curious. The daughter Lorelai knew and loved was showing through. Lorelai smiled.

"Mmm hmm," she replied in affirmation. "I tried to tell you this when…" she trailed off, realizing she was speaking before thinking again. Why did she always do that?

Jess was within earshot, and she knew she could _not_ reveal what Rory had done to him. Plus, she didn't want to torture Rory by bringing up the whole Dean thing right now. That would just throw her back into defensive mode all over again. Lorelai took a deep breath and started again.

"I wanted to tell you before you left for Europe, but now will do," she explained. "Luke and I… are officially dating now."

"Officially?" Rory excitedly replied, her happiness audible.

"Yeah. I know I thought I _migh_ t be dating him before, but um… we've… cleared that up now." Lorelai was practically giggling.

"Have you…?" Rory didn't actually ask the question.

"We've kissed." Lorelai answered, her smile also, somehow, audible.

Rory had actually been thinking about sex, though. At the realization that her mother hadn't even gone as far as she just had with Dean, Rory's mood shifted a bit. She stopped feeling quite so happy for her mother, and started feeling… guilty, again. And she wished her mother would just be a friend to her in this difficult and confusing time, instead of judgmental and preachy. She went back to being angry with her mother. She tried to ignore the feelings and continue the conversation, however.

"So, have you gone out on an official date yet?" she asked. The fact that the tone of her voice was not quite as light as it had been did not escape Lorelai.

"No… not yet. Luke's sister... and TJ… got hurt," she elaborated, looking over at Jess as she said it. He was, of course, listening. With no other sound around, it was kind of impossible not to.

"Oh no," Rory replied, genuine concern arising. Her thoughts also immediately went to Jess. For some reason, she always thought of Liz in terms of her being Jess' mother.

"It's just some broken bones, nothing that won't heal," Lorelai reassured Rory, and at the same time, she kind of felt like she was reassuring Jess.

She met his eyes and he closed them and nodded, acknowledging her statement.

"But he needs to help them out with the Renaissance Fair, so he's out of town for a while," she concluded.

"So… long story short, you'll go out with Luke when he gets back?"

"Exactly."

Rory nodded to herself.

Lorelai felt their conversation was basically over. She'd talk to Rory about Jess and everything else once Jess, Pamela, and Andre were not right there to listen to every word.

"I better get going," Rory commented, also ready to say goodbye, "because Grandma wants us to leave for the restaurant now."

"Alright, hun. Goodbye," Lorelai said.

"Bye."

They hung up, but Lorelai found herself regretting not ending with an "I love you". Despite things being strained between them right now, Lorelai still instinctively wished she'd reassured her daughter of that fact, which of course would always be true regardless of any fight.

* * *

About an hour of quiet time in the waiting room passed. Lorelai spent most of it mentally planning what exactly she'd say to Clara. Then, the young boys started complaining that they were hungry. Everyone decided lunch would be a good idea, except for Jess, who no one noticed remained completely silent on the matter. He was starving, as he and Lorelai had both skipped breakfast that morning, but he no longer had enough cash left in his wallet to purchase a meal.

He followed the crowd to elevator, and then off of it toward the cafeteria. Everyone else started picking out which food items they planned to purchase and placed them on their trays.

"I'll go find a free table," Jess offered.

"Oh, thanks," Pamela replied with a smile, before turning back to her children.

They were both stretching their arms up as far as they could, but the candy, which their parents had no intentions of purchasing for them, was beyond their reach.

Lorelai was the first to join Jess at the table, carrying over a tray full of completely different items than what she'd gotten the previous day. She had enjoyed that food, but eating the same thing two days in a row would be boring. She liked variety.

"You can go get your food now," Lorelai told him kindly. "I can hold the table now."

"Oh, no. That's okay." Jess shrugged. "I'm not hungry," he lied.

"What?" she replied incredulously. "We both haven't eaten since last night." It was now around eleven thirty in the morning.

Jess didn't really have a response for that. He didn't want to admit the truth to Lorelai. He wasn't embarrassed about being poor. That wasn't it at all. Rather, it was the conversation that would follow, where she'd offer to pay for him, and he just didn't want to deal with any of that right now.

Lorelai pursed her lips. "Well… you can have some of my onion rings, if you want." They were best fit for sharing out of all of the items on her tray.

"Thank you," he replied sincerely. They did look pretty good. He took one and savored it, not sure when he'd next be eating. He waited till Pamela, Andre, and the boys finally arrived before letting himself steal a second one.

Lorelai tried to eat quickly and not get sucked into conversations or anything, because she decided now would be the best time to disturb Clara without anyone getting suspicious. She could finish her lunch, claim she was heading to use the restroom, and then wake up the girl.

Trevor asked Jess, "Why aren't you eating anything?"

"Yeah, why?" his brother reiterated.

"I'm just not that hungry," Jess answered.

"Oh. Well I'm hungry. So I'm eating grilled cheese," Shawn supplied, stating the obvious. Lorelai smiled. She'd had that sandwich yesterday and it had been delicious.

"I'm eating grilled cheese too," Trevor said.

"I can see that," Jess replied, smiling slightly. He found the boys endearing. He'd had very little experience interacting with young children, but it was surprisingly kind of nice.

Lorelai chewed her final bite, then took a final gulp of her coffee.

"I'm gonna take a bathroom break," she announced, standing up with her tray in her hand.

Jess wasn't completely sure, but he suspected Lorelai was actually going to take this opportunity to talk to Clara.

"Oh, okay," he said.

Lorelai stopped by the trash receptacles and left her tray on top of one in a designated spot, then disappeared.

* * *

Lorelai entered Clara's room quietly and saw that, sure enough, the girl was sound asleep. She didn't want to wake her, but this was her only good opportunity. Lorelai walked lightly over to her and gently brushed a strand of her hair away from her face. She'd done this to wake Rory up for school when Rory was half Clara's age. She wondered if the subtle touch might work on Clara too.

She didn't stir.

"Clara," Lorelai whispered. Still nothing. "Clara," she repeated, this time louder. "Sweetie? Clara?"

She gently started to pull her sheet off of her. That did the trick.

Clara moaned softly and tried to pull the sheet back toward her body, but Lorelai prevented her.

"Sweetie, I'm really sorry, but I need you to wake up now."

Clara groggily opened her eyes and adjusted to her surroundings, slowly remembering everything.

"Lorelai?" she asked softly, clearly confused as to why she'd been awoken.

"Hi," she answered, gently.

"Why did you wake me up?" she asked.

Lorelai hesitated. "I… I need to talk to you about your stepfather," she said somberly.

"What?! Why? Is he here?" Clara suddenly pushed herself, using her arms, into an upright sitting position, immediately so much more awake.

"No, no," Lorelai tried to reassure her. "Nothing like that." She felt awful for instilling such panic in the girl.

Clara was breathing heavily, frantically looking into Lorelai's eyes.

"Your stepfather needs to be in prison," she started to explain, hoping this was the best way to begin the serious conversation.

Clara darted her eyes away, down toward her bed.

"What he's done to you is… awful, and criminal," Lorelai said sympathetically. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Clara whispered. "I know." She still avoided eye contact.

"It's important for your sake… and even for Zachary's sake… that we report him to the police," Lorelai continued. She was struggling to stay calm and clear. For once, she was definitely thinking before speaking. She needed to say exactly the right things to Clara.

"Zachary?" Clara breathed, slowly turning her head back up so that her eyes would meet Lorelai's. Her gaze conveyed such terror for her newborn son.

"Zachary is… his son. I mean, biologically," she hastily corrected.

Clara nodded, looking back down toward her legs.

"Even if your stepfather doesn't care about that fact," Lorelai tried to explain, "your son will one day grow up and ask about his father." For the moment she was avoiding bringing up the more serious potential scenarios where the stepfather did care that he had a son out there.

Clara's eyes started welling up with tears that were threatening to fall, and she looked back up at Lorelai, waiting for her to continue.

"Andre and Pamela will probably also want to know who his father is. You won't be able to avoid the truth forever."

"But I don't want anyone to know!" Clara replied strongly, her voice breaking and a few tears starting to fall. Much more quietly, she clarified, "I don't want anyone else to know what he did to me."

"I know, honey," Lorelai replied gently, sitting herself down on Clara's bed. "I know." She looked at her with a very sympathetic face. "But this is important. For you too."

"For me?" She tried to wipe the tears away from her eyes with both of her hands.

Lorelai nodded. "You suffered a trauma. More than just a trauma. You've been… being abused," she said, the word difficult to say to the girl and clearly even more jarring for the girl to hear. "You've been being abused for a long time, and you need to talk to someone about that. Someone who can help you more than me."

"Like Andre?"

"Sure, talking to your brother might be good. But actually, I meant… a psychiatrist."

"Oh."

The two of them sat there for a few moments in silence, Lorelai watching as everything she'd just said really sunk in for Clara.

"I'm scared," Clara finally said, her voice barely audible.

"I can help you tell people," Lorelai offered, hoping that would comfort her a bit. "Whoever you want to tell first – Andre, Pamela… the police."

"Um… Pamela," Clara answered, still practically breathing the words. "Pamela first."

"Okay." Lorelai smiled at her.

Clara reached over and wrapped her arms around her, engulfing her in a hug. Lorelai hugged the girl back. She felt Clara's tears begin to dampen her shirt and so she squeezed her even tighter.

Still in the hug, Clara whispered, "Can you just tell her for me?"

Lorelai took a deep breath. She replied in a very soft tone of voice. "Sure. If that's what you want."

"It is," Clara confirmed.


End file.
